EURIPID2S, the latest of the three great Greek tragedians, was b. at Salamis, 480 B.C., on the very day (23d Sept.), it is said, of the glorious victory gained by the Greeks over the Persians near that island. The Arundel Marble, however, gives as the date of his birth 485 while Midler, following Eratostlienes, makes it four years later, His education was very good. At first, he was trained to gymnastic exercises (in conse quence of the prediction of an oracle that he should be crowned with " sacred gar lands"); he next turned his attention to painting; then studied philosophy under naxagoras, and rhetoric under Prodicus, and formed a lasting friendship with Socrates. The first play of E.'s which was performed was the Peliades (456 B. c.). In 441 B. c., he gained the first prize for tragedy, and continued to write for the Athenian stage until 408 B.C., when he accepted an invitation to the court of Archelatis, king of Macedonia. Scandal has invented other reasons for E.'s leaving Athens, but they are unworthy of notice. He is said to have been killed (406 B.c.) by dogs, which were set upon him by two brother-poets who envied him his reputation. In E.'s time, Greek tragedy had been brought to its highest perfection by Sophoeles, who was 15 years older than Euripides. The latter, however, was the second favorite author of his time; nay, on more than one occasion, his tragedies were preferred to those of Sophoeles; but his liberal and even neologistic tendencies in regard to religion, excited the hostility of that witty but scurrilous champion of Greek orthodoxy, Aristophanes, who frequently ridiculed E. in cutting parodies. There can be no doubt that E. was systematically abused by the Athenian tory party, of whom Aristophanes was the literary chief, and to whose unscrupulous opposition it was owing that he gained the prize only five times out of 75 competitions. But against the censure of Aristophanes may be set the praise of two much greater men—Aristotle and John Milton. E.'s plays are reckoned by some to have amounted to 75, by others to 92. Only 18 have come down to us. These arc Alcestis (438 B.C.), Medea (431 p.c.), Hippolytus (428 B.C.), Hecuba (424 B.c.), Heracleidce (421 B. C. 1), Supplices (421 B.C. 1), Ion (date not ascertainable), Hercules l'urens (date not
ascertainable), Andromache (420-17 B.C.), Troades (415 B.C.), Electra (415-13 B.c.), Helena (412 n.c.), 1phigeneia in Tauris (date uncertain), ()Testes (408 u.c.), Phanissce (probably same year), Bacclue (pFbably written in Macedonia), Iphigeneia in Aulis (posthumously represented iu Athens); and finally, Cyclops (uncertain). Rhesus, attributed to E., is probably not genuine. Concerning E. and his tragedies, A.W. Schlegel remarks: "Of few authors can so much good and evil be predicated with equal truth. He was a man of infinite talent, skilled in the most varied intellectual arts; but although abounding in brilliant and amiable qualities, he wanted the sublime earnestness and artistic skill which we admire in JEschylus and Sophocles. He aspires only to please, no matter by what means. For this reason, he is so frequently unequal to himself; pro ducing at times passages of exquisite beauty, and frequently sinking into positive vul garity." The main object of E. was to excite emotion, and his works laid open a totally new world (in literature), that of the heart, which, beyond dispute, contributed much to their popularity. On the other hand, his inartistic and careless plots compelling him to a constant use of the Deus ex machind solution of difficulties, and occasionally even the subjects of his art themselves, leave ample room for criticism. Archelaus refused to allow his bones to be removed to Athens, and erected a splendid monument to him in Pella, with the inscription: " Never, 0 Euripides, will thy memory be forgotten!" Still more honorable was the inscription on the cenotaph erected to him by the Athenians on the way to the Pirmus; "All Greece is the monument of Euripides; Mace donian earth covers but his bones." Sophocles, who survived him, publicly lamented. his loss; and the orator Lycurgus afterwards erected a statue to him in the theater at Athens. The editio princops of E. appeared, it is thought, at Florence, toward the end of the 15th century. The best modern editions am those of Beek (Leip. 1778-88), Mat thiae (Leip. 1813-29), Kirchhoff (1855), and Nauck (1871). An English translation in verse, by Potter, appeared at Oxford in 1814.