Anti-War Sentiments in Trojan Women Kaitlyn Barkley College

Anti-War Sentiments in Trojan Women

In the year 415 B.C.E., the Greeks had been fighting a long and bloody war with Sparta for over a decade. It was in this year that Euripides, a well-known playwright, wrote Trojan Women, a tragedy about the women of Troy directly following the fall of Troy. It is commonly thought that he wrote this play in response to the massacre at the island of Melos that had occurred just a year prior to the play’s publication. The Athenian army had sailed to Melos, demanded their surrender, and when they refused, laid siege to the city. A few months later, the Athenian army took the city, slaughtered the men, and sold the women and children into slavery. This was not an isolated incident in any way. This occurred often both on the side of Sparta and Athens. Many people were sick of it, Euripides included. He then wrote Trojan Woman, probably in response, which follows Hecuba, the Queen of Troy; Cassandra, a prophet whom no one believes; Andromache, Hecuba’s daughter-in-law; and Helen, the woman whom the Trojan War is over. While there is no plot in the traditional sense, the story follows the women’s downward arc into further despair as worse and worse events keep happening. Euripides was clearly...