The Palace and Park by Phillips, Forbes, Latham, Owen, Scharf, and Shenton

Born at Salamis, B.C. 480. Died in Macedonia, B.C. 406. Aged 74.] The father of Euripides, putting his own interpretation upon the oracle which promised that his son should be crowned with “sacred garlands,” had him carefully trained in gymnastic exercises, and whilst yet a boy Euripides won the prize at the Eleusinian and Thesean games. But the lad was soon allured from physical sports, by the fascinations of philosophy and literature. He became the ardent pupil and friend of the philosopher Anaxagoras, and the instruction thus derived is visible in many of his productions. At the age of 18, Euripides wrote his first tragedy. He gained the first prize B.C. 441, and continued to exhibit his plays until within two years of his death. He died in Macedonia, and is said to have been torn in pieces by the dogs of the Macedonian king. Twenty of his plays are extant. Like Anaxagoras, Euripides was of a serious temper, and averse to mirth. He was intimate with Socrates, and the contemporary of Herodotus, Xenophon, Thucydides, Pindar, Aristophanes, Æschylus, and Sophocles. To assign him his poetical rank we must look back. In the three great Attic tragedians we trace a natural progress of their theatre. In Æschylus, the stage appears attracted with predominant force to the high mythological ideas which it arose to embody: the muse stalks sublimely above the heads of men. In Sophocles, the art tempers and adjusts, with admirable equipoise, the superhuman and the human element; the spirits and hearts of men are more closely approached by the poet, still overshadowed by the heroic and the divine. In Euripides, although the story which he represents is still drawn from the same source of divine and heroic fable, the sympathy with passions, events, interests, and sufferings, incident to humanity, prevails in excess. With him, amidst strewings of beautiful poetry, and whilst penetrated with strokes of singular pathos, we too much feel that we step on our own daily and common earth. We miss the elevation of an art which should, in reflecting ourselves, lift us above ourselves: as we have experience in our own Shakspeare. Sophocles said that “he himself represented men as they ought to be, but Euripides as they are.” [This bust is verified by another in the Louvre, and one in the Naples Museum, which has the name of Euripides engraved on the breast. There is also a cameo of exceeding beauty in the Louvre, on which we find the same head. Portraits of Euripides were common at Athens, and even as late as the 5th century his statues were to be seen at Constantinople. A small seated statue of Euripides will be found in the Bas-relief Gallery, No. 215. It is inscribed with his name, and has a list of his plays, upon the slab which supports the statue. See Handbook to Greek Court, No. 215.]