c. 480–406 BCE

Euripides

The most modern of the tragedians, and the least consoling. He lets gods, women, and foreigners speak until the city’s stories about itself begin to crack.

Turned myth against the audience: psychology, sacrilege, and the terror of the god who arrives in person.

Primary works

Tragedy · c. 405 BCE

The Bacchae

Euripides

Dionysus returns to Thebes and is refused by Pentheus. The god unseats the city’s reason; the king dies at his mother’s hands on the mountain. Recognition arrives as horror.

Dionysian tragedy