Comparatively little biographical information is known about Euripides. It is certain that he was the youngest of the great trio of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides who shaped Greek drama.
Many of the stories we have concerning Euripides life seem to be malicious rumors spread by the Comic poets who satirized him.
For example, there is a story that his mother sold herbs in the agora. This obviously is meant to cast aspersions on his background.
It is known that he lived between about 485BCE to 406BCE.
It is known that he was a prolific writer; he is believed to have composed 92 plays during his life. We know the names of about 80 of these. Nineteen of his plays exist in complete form. (Although it is possible, that more may be uncovered in Egypt).
Of these, the first ten were found as part of a manuscript dated to about 200CE. This includes, Alcestis, Medea, Hippolytus, Andromache, Hecuba, Trojan Women, Phoenician Women, Orestes, Bacchae and the Rhesus.
The second batch of plays was found in a fragment of an alphabetical arrangement. The preserved piece contained those plays that started with the Greek letters E to K. These include the Helen, Electra, Children of Heracles, Madness of Heracles, Suppliant Women, and Iphigeneia in Aulis, Iphigeneia in Tauris, Ion and the Cyclops.
It is thought that he was an associate of the school of Sophists, that he was a friend of the philosophers Socrates, Anaxagoras and Protagoras. There is certainly an air of sophistry in his works. It is also thought that Protagoras gave the first reading of his skeptical work at Euripides house.
On the other hand, it is said that he composed his plays alone in a cave on Salamis...
Euripides received first prize at the Great Dionysia on four occasions, once posthumously.
By the end of his life, he was said to have left Athens, embittered, for the court of Archelaus of Macedonia. It is said that the Kings dogs killed him.
