The only reason I got this volume was because it contained the one Euripidean play that I did not have: the Heraklidae (or, the Children of Heracles). Herakles, otherwise known in Latin as Hercules (which is the term we generally use) was an ancient Greek hero and demigod. He is most famous for the twelve labours, but he appears elsewhere, notably as one of the Argonauts who sailed with Jason to search for the golden fleece (though he is left behind halfway there and goes his own way). Heracles is also well known for his strength, and in Greek Mythology he does seem to come out as a 'strong man' in the same sense that Samson of the Bible does. To me he is simply a hero in the same sense as Achilles.

Heracles is also known for having over 700 children, and as such creating a race who eventually invaded and conquered the Peloponesian peninsula. The play is set before their rise to power (though it needs be remembered that there was an awful lot of them). Heracles' offspring come to blows with the King of Mycenae and flee to Athens for protection. While there the king raises an army, but the Athenians warn him that the Heraclidae are under his protection. However an oracle says that unless a woman is sacrificed then they will lose the war. One Athenian (no doubt in love with one of the Heraclidae) offers herself up, and thus they go to war and win, and capture the King of Mycenae alive. They are reluctant to execute him, but he prophesies that if they kill him then his spirit will become a defender of Athens.

Euripides wrote this play during the Peloponesian war, and while we have a lot of his plays, he was always second best to his contemporary Sophocles. Initially only seven of his plays were to survive (in the same sense that we have seven each of the other two great tragedians), however an entire volume of plays also managed to survive and as such he have a much larger collection than normal. The Heraclidae would be one of those plays.

This play, obviously written during the war, is designed as a patriotic piece to inspire the Athenians during a dark period of their history. As mentioned, the Heraclidae became the Peloponesians, of which Sparta is one of the many cities. Thus the audience is reminded of a time when they were the protectors of those who are now enemies, and is a way to justify their current actions. Further, the sacrifice of the former enemy of the Heraclidae is a reminder of a promise that Athens will be protected.

Greek myth is very fluid and tends to change depending on the location and the events. Perseus is considered to be the father of the Persians and Media is the mother of the Medes. Both characters where betrayed by Greek kings, which is why their respective countries became enemies. Of course it is highly unlikely that either of these characters were to ancestors of these races, but in a Greco-centric world, one does not accept that there is any explanation beyond your own borders (which is very true of what is happening today).

This is a rather unusual play in that while it is connected with the main Theban epic, it does not seem to sit well within the epic cycle. Rather it seems to be an attempt by Sophocles to explore some of the unanswered questions that arose within both the Antigone and Oedipus Tyrannos, particularly as whether Oedipus was truly guilty of his actions (he was not as they were done in ignorance) as well as how Creon basically became a jerk. I say that because in Oedipus Tyrannos he seems to be a rather decent person, but in the Antigone he is a brutal tyrant. We also have interactions with Polynicies, one of Oedipus' sons and the one who fled Thebes after his brother Etocles took the throne, and then returned with an army in an attempt to retake it.

The play sits between Oedipus Tyrannos and the Antigone, though it was probably the last play that Sophocles wrote. In fact he never saw it performed as he had died, though I suspect that since it was written around the time that Athens finally fell to the Spartans that the annual Dionysia was probably cancelled. However it was performed, and it also became one of the seven plays of Sophocles that have survived down to modern times. A friend of mine considers this to be her favourite Greek play, however I am still a little confused with it because it really does not seem to deal with any particular legend, and I got the impression that my Classical Studies lecturer didn't particularly think much of it either.

The play is set in Colonus, which was a small village outside of Athens (though I did a Google Maps search and found that it is now a suburb of Athens that lies to the Northwest of the Acropolis, just slightly to the west of the main Athens Railway station, though I doubt you will find any ancient ruins there). The village itself is located in Attica which means that it comes under the jurisdiction of Athens, though quite possibly during the Peloponesian War it was located outside of the Long Walls and as such would have been overrun by the Spartans.

When Oedipus arrives he is chided by the inhabitants for despoiling a sacred site, and this sets the tone of the entire play. Oedipus has been tainted with sin in that he had committed patricide (the murder of one's father) and incest, and even mentions that his daughters are also his sisters, and his sons are equally his brothers. It sort of creates a really strange, and somewhat unnatural, relationship with his children/siblings. However one of the ideas that I get out of this play is the that the Greeks considered incest (and to an extent patricide) wrong. Still, I am personally not convinced that Oedipus did anything wrong, though I have discussed this in detail previously under Oedipus Tyrannos, so there is no need for me to go over old ground here. However, there is still the idea of incest, which seems to play a significant role in this play, and that is because both Ismene and Antigone are major characters. However for some reason Creon arrives at Colonus to take them back, and forcefully that that.

I guess this is about Oedipus' coming to terms with his fate, and in a way allowing him to be cleansed. He does begin to go through a cleansing ritual, but unfortunately this is interrupted when Creon arrives and forcefully removes Ismene, who is going out to collect the pure spring water that is required in the ritual. Theseus also makes an appearance in this play as king of Athens. This confuses me a bit since in other plays (by Euripides) he is king of Athens during Heracles' reign in Thebes. However I guess that is not the point, but rather, like in Heracles Furens, Theseus once again plays the role of the psychologist and friend who helps Oedipus come to terms with his past. Unlike Herakles, who suffered from combat trauma and PTSD, Oedipus suffers from guilt and a persecution complex. This, honestly, is not surprising. Simply put, somebody in heaven must seriously hate this guy because as I have repeatedly said: he has done nothing wrong, he was only a victim of destiny.

Polynicies also makes an appearance in this play. He was kicked out of Thebes when his brother Etocles took the throne. Both Creon and Polynicies want Oedipus to return to Thebes, most likely to settle the dispute between the two brothers, and both become incredibly hostile and agitated when he refuses to do so. Creon even goes to the extent of kidnapping his daughters to attempt to bring him back. We see a very nasty Creon in this play, and this extends much further when we get to Antigone. We obviously know what happens: Polynicies raises and army and attacks Thebes, and in the ensuring battle, loses and dies, but not before killing Etocles. What happens afterwards I shall leave for when I finish Antigone (and you can also refer to Seven Against Thebes).

The play ends with Oedipus' death and his ascension to the Blessed Realms. Oedipus' death is actually incredibly dignified, and deserving of a man who fate has simply turned around and slapped him in the face. One thing I noted is that even Creon, for as much of a prick that he is, recognises Oedipus' benevolent rule in Thebes. Unfortunately nothing like that comes about again. I am doubtful that it is Oedipus that is cursed, but rather the city itself (and it has probably something to do with the father of Laertius feeding human flesh to his enemy: another very, very, bad thing in Greek society). One thing I am not willing to do is to link this tragedy to Athens' hatred of Thebes, and vice versa. Okay, Creon and Theseus come to blows, and it is ordained there that Thebes and Athens were to become enemies, but this is what they call rewriting the past. It is very interesting that Oedipus went to the Blessed Realms, since that is a reward set aside for only the greatest of heroes (Achilles being one of them), so I guess for a man who suffered as much as Oedipus did, it is probably the gods (and in particular Zeus) turning around and saying, 'hey, this didn't happen because of anything you did, but rather the actions of your ancestors, so because you suffered so in life you will be rewarded in death'.

At first I thought I saw similarities between this and Shelley's Cerci, but I guess the themes in this play are a little different. The idea of the powerful oppressing the powerless is a similar theme but the two plays end up diverging quite significantly. The story itself involves the queen of Athens being raped by Apollo and then giving birth to a child. She then exposes the child (namely leaving it out in the wilderness to die) due to the shame of the whole situation. Years later her and her husband come to Delphi to find out how they can have children, and since they are the rulers of Athens children mean succession. As it turns out the child, Ion, was taken to Delphi and has been raised as an Ancient Greek version of an altar boy.

There is the idea of the powerful, represented by Apollo, taking advantage of the powerless, represented by Creusa, though remember that she is a member of the nobility, and this indicates certain layers of power. The idea here involves the relationship between the gods and humanity and raises the question that since the gods are divine why do they behave in such a fickle and unjust manner. This can be representative of the class system within Athenian society (and here were are not exploring the master slave relationship but the distinction between the wealthy and the poor, or the city dwellers and the farmers). Thus the question of justice does arise since Apollo, representing the wealthy, is able to commit crimes against humanity (representing the poor) and get away scott free.

Another theme that flows through here is the issue of progeny. Creusa and her husband desire a child so that Athens might have a stable government. The existence of a heir means that there will be no succession crisis (which can be turn out to be quite violent as various factions all fight for control of the kingdom) however they have remained childless. This issue of succession takes a twist when Xuthus (Creusa's husband) is told that upon leaving the temple the first person he sees will be his son, and this turns out to be Ion. This raises a few issues since Xuthus has had no child by Creusa, so it means that this child must have been had through another woman.

This causes a problem because Xuthus is not native Athenian, which means that if Ion is not the child of Creusa then he is a foreigner and for him to ascend the throne means that a foreigner will rule Athens (which is an issue that comes down even today – one of the theories as to why Kennedy was assassinated was because he was Catholic, which meant the Pope, a foreigner, was calling the shots). The problem was that secrets are unlikely to remain secrets, and the gods were never (and still are never) known to give straight answers. This means that the riddles that they spoke were oft known to be misinterpreted.

This play is not a tragedy in a sense, and probably falls more into a comic genre with the gods posing riddles that are misinterpreted, with the main actors making assumptions and getting things wrong, and then everything being sorted out at the end and everybody leaving happy. Ion, the one who never knew his mother, or father, leaves with a mother and a father, and Creusa and Xuthus, who desired a son, leave with a son. Athens is also saved, in that the succession crisis does not come about because an heir to the throne has become apparent.

The only person that escapes punishment, and in fact never makes an appearance in the play, is Apollo. Thus another theme that runs through the play is the question of the fickleness of the gods. It is intended by some characters that Apollo must be punished for his crimes, but Athena makes a grand entrance and tells everybody to stop and enjoy the revelations that have come to light. The play is opened by Hermes, who gives us the background and tells us the story that leads up to this point, but Apollo never makes an appearance. This is not surprising since the plays (particularly Euripides who loves to use the Deus Ex Machina) tend to only have the gods on stage at the beginning and the end. However the true villain of the peace never makes an appearance and skulks in the background somehow knowing his crime but never wanting to face it. Once again I guess this is a similar view of spirituality that many people have today – particularly when we deal with the fact that God seems to take a back seat when it comes to letting those who call themselves his people run riot over the earth.

My classics lecturer mentioned that this play was rather ho-hum and in a way I am inclined to agree. However, we still need to consider that it is an Aeschylus play, which means that it was at least a generation earlier than the plays of Sophocles and Euripides. Aeschylus is considered to be one of the great dramatists of Classical Greece, however since we only have plays from two other tragedians that doesn't really say much.

Aeschylus' plays do tend to be more primitive than those of Sophocles and Euripides and generally focus more on the myth rather than making any particular comment on society. However, each of the three playwrights (and I do not include Aristophanes in this group as he wrote comedy, not tragedy) have their own styles and purposes. I like to compare them with modern directors and would suggest that Aeschylus would be close to a Frank Capra, Sophocles would be a Ron Howard (or a Stephen Spielberg) while Euripides would be a Martin Scorsesee (or a Quentin Tarantino). I've probably said that before, but I like the comparison (though I would love to hear from you if you disagree).

This play is about the Daenids, who happen to be the daughters of Daenus (which is probably pretty obvious). The story goes that after Io was transformed into a bull by Hera (simply because Zeus slept with her – isn't it interesting that the victim, not the perpetrator, is the one punished) and was tormented by a gadfly, forcing her to flee to Egypt. She settled down in the land of the black earth (which is what the Egyptians called Egypt) and from her descendants came the brothers Daenus and Aegyptus. Daenus had fifty daughters, and Aegyptus had fifty sons, and the sons wanted to marry the daughters. However, the daughters did not want a bar of them, so they fled with their father to Argos for sanctuary, and the entire play is about the conflict between the sons of Aegyptus and the daughters of Daenus. In a way it is not all that thrilling. However it is not Aeschylus that we criticise, but rather the people that decided to include this as one of the plays that would survive.

So, first I will talk a bit about Argos. Having read through some of these plays I have noticed that the Mycenean Greeks (the period in which the plays are set) refer to the Greeks as Argives or Achaeans. Now, Argos (the land from which the Argives come) lies on the northeastern corner of the Peloponese and Achaea lies on the northwest. As such it is only a part of the whole Greek world. But, during the Mycenean period, Argos was the centre of Greek life. While there were other city states (such as Athens and Thebes) the powerbase during this period lay in Mycenae, which is located in Argos. This is probably why we see the Argives being referred to as Greeks (though Greek is actually a Latin term, the Greeks refer to themselves as Hellenes).

Then there is the idea about Egypt. Remember, the world revolved around the Greeks and as such it was the Greek race that gave birth of humanity. Here it is suggested that the Egyptians originally came from Io, a Greek, however we know a lot differently now. Consider the date of the play: 500 BC. By this time Egypt was a province of the Persian Empire, having collapsed as an independent entity after being invaded by Babylon (and Assyria before that). Yet, if we move earlier to Mycenaen Greece, we set the time at around 1500 BC to 1100 BC. Once again we are in the New Kingdom of Egypt, and archaeology proves that Egypt had been around for a lot longer (in fact much longer than the Greeks). Well, the Greeks weren't scientists though, nor did they have sophisticated archaeological techniques (they had only just developed the discipline of writing history), but in the end it is all irrelevant because this is mythology, and mythology is generally skewed to support a point that the mythmaker is trying to make (we see it all the time in our society – it is called propaganda).

I should mention that technically this play should come under 'I' as opposed to 'H' (and I almost put it under 'I' without thinking) namely because Greek does not actually have an 'H'. What they have are rough and smooth breathings, which is a little symbol that appears at the front of a word that begins with a vowel. If the word has a smooth breathing it is pronounced without an H while if it has a rough breathing it is pronounced with an H. You have probably worked out that Hippolytus has a rough breathing, however in the Greek Lexicons it will be found under 'Iota' which is the Greek I.

This play is a tragedy however it is not strictly a tragedy in the true sense of the word namely because the main character, Hippolytus, does not have a fatal flaw. However, this whole concept of a fatal flaw was something that Aristotle explores in 'Poetics' and it is something that Shakespeare used in a lot of his tragedies, though I will still argue that the central characters in his tragedies do not strictly have fatal flaws. The Greek tragedies don't really seem to use it either, so I am not sure what Aristotle is getting at when he was writing his poetics. Mind you, I don't think Aristotle was around during the period when the great playwrights were writing their plays, and while one could consider that drama as an artform was still developing, it seemed that by the time Sophocles and Euripides were writing their plays and competing against each other drama had reached a reasonably mature form.

One could consider that Phaedra and Theseus are the tragic heroes in this play and that Hippolytus has just an innocent victim. It is not the only play where the tragic hero is not the title character, the same is the case of Julius Ceaser: the tragic hero in Julius Ceaser is Marcus Brutus. Now, the issue with Phaedra is that she is madly in love with Hippolytus however Hippolytus is Theseus' son (not by Phaedra) and Phaedra is married to Theseus, so there is a problem. The second problem is that Hippolytus has devoted himself to the goddess Artemis, the Goddess of nature and the wilds. In keeping with Artemis' character, Hippolytus has chosen a life of celibacy. Despite that Phaedra is still his step mother and I am very doubtful that Hippolytus would betray his father by sleeping with his stepmother. Strangely enough it is this type of relationship that Paul goes ballistic at the Corinthians for in the New Testament. Seriously, it is not a comforting idea, even though Phaedra is not his mother by birth. Remember, it is this sin that drives Oedipus to gouge out his eyes and exile himself (though Jocasta is his mother by birth).

Now, the play opens with a very upset Aphrodite and the reason that she is upset is because Hippolytus is celibate. It confuses me somewhat as to why a god would get so uptight over a single celibate man, but I have a feeling that it goes quite deeper than that. I guess we need to consider the Greek Gods in a more ancient and pagan sense where they personify ideas and concepts, and in Aphrodite's case that concept is sexual love (though I suspect that is where Eros comes in, the Greek Gods can be quite confusing, though I know that Aphrodite is a major god while Eros is not). Anyway, the play demonstrates the fickleness of the gods, where by devoting himself to Artemis Hippolytus earns the enmity of Aphrodite. In a way it is a lose lose situation, and I suspect something that Hippolytus is confronting. I also suspect that Euripides is not a very big fan of this.

Now, Hippolytus is not actually living with his father, he is old enough to go out on his own, however because Theseus is purging some sin (which remains unnamed in the play) he has taken his wife Phaedra to Trozen to become pure. Now, there were issues between Phaedra and Hippolytus back in Athens, and Hippolytus left, probably for his own sanity, however Phaedra's yearning for him has not gone away. We should note that this is a part of Aphrodite's curse on Hippolytus. There is an interesting thing that I have picked up from the Greek dramas because in our society we would simply call it love sickness, and personally, we really don't know how it comes about. I doubt the Greeks did either, which is why they blamed the gods. We see a similar thing with madness cursing Herakles in his self-named play, and a similar thing with Ajax in his self-named play.

Now, Phaedra, who cannot handle Hippolytus' rejection, and cannot imagine living without a sexual liason with him, decides to kill herself and to leave a note blaming Hippolytus for her death. This indicates hints of depression, however it does seem to be a very extreme case in killing herself because she cannot have Hippolytus. However I suspect that such suicides are not unheard of in our own society, though I must admit that I haven't explored this concept deeply. We should note that psychologists have turned to this play in relation to some mental health issues. Anyway, Thesus pretty much prejudges Hippolytus and it is only after he has called curses down on him that he realises that he has acted too rashly. I guess it is not surprising. In fact it is a very human grief reaction to act and blame before rationally thinking about what has been occurring. We actually saw the grief cycle at a seminar today, though I must admit that I can't remember the specific. I suspect, though, that if we look at Theseus' reaction to Phaedra's death then we will see the grief cycle (and one aspect is denial followed by blame and then later on comes acceptance).

Once again, I am not convinced Hippolytus did anything wrong, and it appears that he is simply being persecuted for his way of life. I was going to say morality, but my feeling is that celibacy is not actually a question of morality because there is actually nothing wrong with sex. It is like many of the other good things on this Earth, namely that it is good but it can be quite destructive if not respected.

So what we seem to see here is the struggle between sexuality and celibacy. It is once again something that is all too common in our society. It is unacceptable to be celibate, as seems to be the case here. Our society believes that we are fools if we chose a path of celibacy, where as in this play, celibacy angers Aphrodite. However, the catch is that celibacy is accepted by Artemis and I also suspect that Athena is celibate as well. I guess that the one reason that celibacy is looked down upon has nothing to do with sexual pleasure and everything to do with the failure to procreate. This is something that does come out in the Bible, especially when we have one of Judah's children in the book of Genesis spilling his seed on the ground and then God punishing him when he does so. Remember that twice in Genesis God commands humanity to be fruitful and multiply and to fill the earth with progeny.

I wish to finish off on the nature of death. When Hippolytus dies Artemis comes to comfort him in his final hours. It is not a quick death - it is a long, slow, and painful one, namely because he was trampled by his horses. Anyway the tragedy of the situation is that despite his lifelong devotion to Artemis it is clear that he is not going to be spending his afterlife with her. In fact this is clearly spelt out in the text. I suspect that that was not originally a Greek concept, and was probably inherited from the Middle East. Islam, Judaism, and Christianity all have the concept of spending the afterlife with the deity. With the Greeks, and I suspect the Romans, this is not the case. Mind you, the Greeks did believe in reincarnation, but I suspect that this was not going to happen to Hippolytus (though we do know that Achilles did go to the Elysian Fields, which is the closest one can come the Greek concept of Heaven).