Eighteen of Euripides's plays have survived, each of which contains elements of the dramatist's non-traditional style that raised criticism from his contemporaries and earned him the respect and admiration of later generations of play readers and theatergoers. One of his most popular works is Medea, Euripides's 431 B.C. retelling of the myth of the sorceress who, faced with abandonment and exile in a strange land, murdered her own children and cursed her unfaithful husband. Hippolytus (428 B.C.) is the story of King Theseus' s bride Phaedra, who falls in love with her stepson, Hippolytus, leading them both down a path toward destruction.

Classical historian Michael Grant has written several books about the ancient Greeks and Romans, including The Rise of the Greeks (1987), which largely examines the political and military history of the Greek Empire; The Classical Greeks (1989), which provides a...