This volume presents a newly edited text of Euripides'
Troades
, with a scene-by-scene and line-by-line commentary that brings centuries of classical scholarship to bear on a wide variety of questions. These include the interpretation of the play as part of a trilogy (its companion plays were
Alexandros and Palamedes
, of which we have only fragments), the contribution of the various scenes, speeches, and choral odes to the play, the style and usage of Euripides, and the stage action of the original performance. Since the play was performed in 415, shortly after the Athenian subjugation of Melos, it has frequently been interpreted as a criticism of Athenian foreign policy. The Introduction provides numerous converging arguments against this view and also sshows that those who hold it are forced to ignore a great deal of the text and cannot account for the Helen episode. The commentary, in addition to discussing the topics named above, interrogates the play's intellectual content, topics such as the nature of human success, vicissitude in mortal life, and the workings of the gods in the world, and re-evaluates the way the play's first audience were meant to react to the worldviews of Hecuba and others. It also examines carefully all the places where the text is insecure, places where there are significant variants or where what is transmitted is open to challenge. The book is written with the needs of both comparative beginners and seasoned classical scholars in mind.