SOURCE: John Ferguson, "Euripides," in A Companion to Greek Tragedy, University of Texas Press, 1972, pp. 235-46.

In this essay, Ferguson discusses the intellectual climate in Greece during Euripides's life and assesses the elements of his dramas.

In the early days of the Persian invasion, while the Spartan troops were fighting their brave defensive action at Thermopylae, the Greek fleet was similarly engaged off the coast of Euboea. The strait between Euboea and the mainland is called Euripus, and it was no doubt in honor of this not unsuccessful action that two Athenian parents called their son born at this time Euripides. Later legend placed his birth on the very day of Salamis, but that is too schematic to be true. There remains something ironic that the great antiwar propagandist should be named after a battle. The parents were named Mnesarchides and Clito; they seem to have been respectable...