CHAPTER TWO
THE HERO THAT WAS
In triumphs people have dropped down dead.
BROWNING, The Patriot
JAEGER very justly remarks that Euripides invented domestic
drama. We have seen familiar features of the type in the
Alcestis. They recur in the Hippolytus, while in the Medea,
with its conflict between the boundless egotism of Jason and
the passion of his wife, we have the form complete.
The Medea, besides being one of the purest examples of
Euripides' genius, has its place among the best of all extant
Greek tragedies. It is very typical, and marked strongly by that accuracy of observation, and that interest in social problems
which is characteristic of the Euripidean manner. The conflict
between the sexes was its inspiration, and there is reason to
believe that, during the Peloponnesian War, that conflict was
passing through an acute stage. Some twenty years before the
production of the Medea, a political event in Athens had done
something to focus attention on the social problem which the
status of women presented. A law had been passed restricting
the citizenship to those who had Athenian parents on both sides. There must have been many a household under Athena's spear where some war-bride from Thrace or Egypt, 1' 1 3711.1,og
airokg otlaa, remembered in Attica distant snows or sands,
a p,71qp' aft (3,8,A06,, ot3ci. avyyerii
pcOopittaact0a6 TficrY jxo6act avp/kopdg.
(Med. 257, 258)