The pseudo-Euripidean Rhesus is the only extant Greek tragedy based on an episode from Homer’s Iliad and a unique witness for the history of the genre in the 4th century BC. This new edition, with introduction and commentary, discusses textual problems, language, metre and dramaturgy as well as the mythological and literary-historical background of the play. It is an indispensable aid for serious students of the text.

The tragedy Rhesus has come down to us among the plays of Euripides but was probably the work either of fourth-century BC actors or producers heavily rewriting his original play or of a fourth-century author writing in competition. This edition explores the play as a 'postclassical' tragedy, composed when the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides had become the 'classical' canon. Its stylistic mannerisms, cerebral re-use of the motifs and language of fifth-century tragedy, and endemic experimentalism with various models of intertextuality exemplify the anxiety of influence of the Rhesus as a text that 'comes after' fifth-century drama and Book 10 of the Iliad. The anachronistic adaptations of the world of the epic heroes to the new reality of the polis and the irresistible rise of Macedonian power also reveal the Rhesus attempting to be both seriously intertextual with its models and seriously different from them.

Based on the conviction that only translators who write poetry themselves can properly recreate the celebrated and timeless tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the Greek Tragedy in New Translations series offers new translations that go beyond the literal meaning of the Greek in order to evoke the poetry of the originals. Under the editorship of Peter Burian and Alan Shapiro, each volume includes a critical introduction, commentary on the text, full stage directions, and a glossary of the mythical and geographical references in the plays. Already tested in performance on the stage, this translation shows for the first time in English the striking interplay of voices in Euripides' Suppliant Women. Torn between the mothers' lament over the dead and proud civic eulogy, between calls for a just war and grief for the fallen, the play captures with unremitting force the competing poles of the human psyche. The translators, Rosanna Warren and Stephen Scully, accentuate the contrast between female lament and male reasoned discourse in this play where the silent dead hold, finally, center stage.

What happened to Greek tragedy after the death of Euripides? This book provides some answers, and a broad historical overview.

Brill’s Companion to Euripides, as well as presenting a comprehensive and authoritative guide to understanding Euripides and his masterworks, provides scholars and students with compelling fresh perspectives upon a broad range of issues in the field of Euripidean studies.

The four plays newly translated in this volume are among Euripides' most exciting works. Iphigenia among the Taurians is a story of escape and contrasting Greek and barbarian civilization, set on the Black Sea at the edge of the known world. Bacchae, a profound exploration of the human psyche, deals with the appalling consequences of resistance to Dionysus, god of wine and unfettered emotion. This tragedy, which above all others speaks to our post-Freudian era, is one of Euripides' two last surviving plays. The second, Iphigenia at Aulis, centres on the ultimate dysfunctional family as natural emotion is tested in the tragic crucible of the Greek expedition against Troy. Lastly, Rhesus, probably the work of another playwright, is a thrilling, action-packed Iliad in miniature, dealing with a grisly event in the Trojan War.