Bacchae

The Bacchae is one of Euripides’ last plays; it was discovered with two others after his death in the winter of 407/6 BC, and when subsequently staged in Athens by his son it won first prize. Few plays have been so much discussed or have been the subject of such exact and careful linguistic study. This paperback version of Dodds’s classic commentary provides the reader with an invaluable introduction to the play and its subject. In the introduction to the text and commentary, Professor Dodds discusses the complex nature of the Dionysiac religion and its place at Athens, and examines traditional elements in the play, its place in Euripides’ work, and the sources of the text. An appendix gives some additional fragments to the Bacchae, discovered since the publication of the first edition.

(from the back cover)