With its savage indictment of the horrors of war as they affect women
and children on the losing side, Euripides Troades has been one of the
most regularly read, performed and adapted of Greek tragedies. It was
first produced in 415 BC just after the Athenians slaughter of the male
population of Melos and at the point where they were sending out the
ambitious Sicilian expedition. It therefore has major contemporary
political significance. Like Aeschylus Eumenides, it was performed as
the third play in a thematically linked trilogy and, though the other
two plays survive only in fragments, important inferences can be drawn
about our interpretation of the surviving play and Euripides use of the
trilogy form. Lee s edition, first published in the famous "red
Macmillan" series in 1976, is the most recent scholarly edition in
English. The detailed commentary discusses text, language,
interpretation and metre; there is a full introduction and for this
paperback edition Lee has added an up-to-date bibliography.