Studies in Euripides’ Orestes

This work agrees with recent critics in reversing the hitherto current view of Euripides’ Orestes as dramaturgically inferior, and finds in the play a reflection of a state of mind and mode of behaviour that are the product of a chaotic and morally destabilized society and of Euripides’ own discontent with this situation. Of particular interest is an original examination of Orestes’ arguments, especially in his scenes with Tyndareus and Menelaus, in the light of the same types of arguments in other plays and, above all, in the precepts and examples of contemporary rhetoric. The author shows that many of the arguments that have outraged modern criticism are in fact standard procedures in ancient Greek argumentation.