Euripides’ Phoenissae was one of the most popular Greek tragedies in the Byzantine period, but has fallen out of favour in more recent times, and is now rarely staged. The precise date of its original production is uncertain, but scholars tend to place it between 411 and 409 BC (see Mastronarde 1994: 11-14). Like all Greek tragedies, it was produced for the festival of the Great Dionysia, and would have been staged in conjunction with two other tragedies and a satyr-play (a lighter play featuring a chorus of satyrs: mythological creatures famed for their debauchery). Phoenissae is set in heroic-age Thebes, after the reign of Oedipus and during the war between his sons Eteocles and Polynices: a topic which also form

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Published 10 October 2009

Citation: Swift, Laura. "Phoenissae". The Literary Encyclopedia. 10 October 2009.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=13355, accessed 21 November 2009.]