Euripides' "Hippolytus": Art, Cult, and Leadership

Classics lecture by Lucia Athanassaki, University of Crete

Euripides’ Hippolytus is the only surviving Greek tragedy that offers a scathing account of Theseus. This representation is also at odds with the visual representations of Athens’ mythical king after whom political leaders such as Cimon and, to a certain extent, Pericles modeled themselves. This paper reads the Euripidean portrait of Theseus against Athenian civic iconography and offers a political assessment of Euripides’ radical departure from previous flattering accounts.