Unlike epic poems, many of Euripides plays
used the tradition to make social commentary on current events of his lifetime.
He wrote a series of plays surrounding aspects of the Trojan War from Iphigenia's
sacrifice to the theory of Helen having been
in Egypt for the entirety of the TW.
This gives the reader of Cassandra some
background on Wolf's ideas of characters in Cassandra (i.e. Odysseus
as a sneaky, rather despicable person as opposed to Homer's views of his
craftiness as a gift or heroic quality) as well as how they interact with/react
to other characters in the novel.
Euripides' Trojan War series was performed in Athens for the first time in 415 BC. At that time, Athens was at war with Sparta and attacking nearby neutral islands to expand their territory and cut off the Spartans. Much of his drama then was critiquing the Athenian war efforts by showing the horrors of the Trojan War.
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