Explore "Iphigenia at Aulis" by Euripides on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Written between 408 and 406 BC, the year of Euripides' death, Iphigenia at Aulis was first produced in 409 BC in a trilogy with The Bacchae and the lost Alcmaeon in Corinth, winning the first place at the Dionysia. The play involves the mythological story of Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army, and his decision to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess Artemis and allow his troops to set sail to Troy. The conflict between Agamemnon and Achilles over the fate of the young woman foreshadows a similar conflict between the two characters at the beginning of the Iliad.
The play as it exists in the manuscripts ends with a messenger reporting that Iphigenia has been replaced on the altar by a deer. It is, however, generally considered that this is not an authentic part of Euripides' original text. A fragment of the play may indicate that Artemis appeared to console Clytemnestra and assure her that her daughter had not been sacrificed after all, but this Euripidean end, if it existed, is not extant.