The Trojan Women, also known as the Troades, was composed by the Greek playwright Euripides in 415 B.C.E. in response to the Athenian massacre on the island of Melos during the Peloponnesian War. Melos had been attempting to maintain its neutrality when Athens slaughtered all the men on the island and forced everyone else into slavery. The widespread absence of outrage on the part of the Athenian people shocked Euripides into writing a drama inspired by the past which paralleled the present.
The Trojan Women was written and performed during a brief period of peace during the Peloponnesian War. It was part of the City Dionysia, an ancient dramatic festival and competition. Euripides ended up coming in second to Xenocles.
The Trojan Women is part of a trilogy, which also encompasses Alexandras and Palamedes. Alexandras is the story of how Hecuba and Priam defied the order to kill the infant Paris; this was a decision which Helen uses to deflect her own guilt in a major scene in The Trojan Women. Palamedes further examines how Greek treachery led to the fall of Troy. Neither of the other two plays in the trilogy has survived intact.
The fall of Troy, the slaughter of its men, and the abduction of its women into slavery set the stage for Euripides to comment upon the lack of what he felt was the proper emotional response to the unjustified and unwarranted attack upon the island of Melos. The title of The Trojan Women is indicative of how the playwright framed this anti-war drama. Since the play commences almost at the point that Troy completely falls, most of the characters—and all the major characters—are women whose husbands, sons, brothers, and fathers have been killed and who have been “chosen” by the members of the victorious Greek invaders to become theirs. This is an anti-war play without scenes of war; instead, it is an almost continuous series of lamentations about the passing of a lifestyle and civilization that will never be experienced again.
In placing the blame for the Trojan War squarely upon the back of Helen, the woman whose abduction and subsequent elopement with the Trojan Paris started the war, Euripides is not just engaging with history, but also with his present. A rumor was spreading among Athens that their own analogue to the Trojan War—the Peloponnesian War—had also been initiated as the result of a woman (in this case, the mistress of Pericles, Aspasia). Not coincidentally, shortly after the premiere performance of The Trojan Women, Euripides was forced to abandon Athens, and it is widely believed that the play cost him his citizenship. This exile forced him into a situation in which his subsequent plays would be produced in Athens by his son rather than by Euripides himself.
Despite the fact that it was somewhat controversial during its own time and later vexing to critics for its putative formlessness and lack of plot, the play has been staged and adapted continuously over the years. There are numerous translations, film versions, and loosely altered versions inspired by the original.
