The ‘barbaric’ world in Euripides

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The article below was originally written in the form of an undergraduate assignment for the Greek Open University in 2007, during a period when the author's academic skills were still under development. Although the quality of this article does not match the quality of later examples of the same author's work, it is written in a thorough manner and contains useful information to nowadays students and other readers with non-specialised knowledge; therefore, it has been proudly included on this website.

The reader needs to be warned that the original assignment, on which this article was based on, was written in Greek and was intended to be read by specialised academics. Despite the author's best intentions to present his essay in the clearest way possible, some points and arguments might still be lost in translation. The author recommends that for any unknown words or specialised vocabulary, the readers should refer to the web for additional information.

The author admits that the bibliography for this article is limited, matching the requirements of an undergraduate assignment of this level. The author did not include any additional bibliography during the translation of his work in English due to time and access limitations. It must also be noted that the original bibliography for this article was studied from translated copies in Greek; therefore, the page numbers suggested in the citations below match the page numbers of the translated copies and not the original volumes.

Introduction

This article discusses the Greek perceptions of the ‘barbarians’ during Classical antiquity, as these are presented in two tragedies by Euripides: Medea (Μήδεια) and Iphigenia in Tauris (Ἰφιγένεια ἐν Ταύροις). The article is divided in four sections. The first section describes the broader picture of the Greek world during the time of Euripides and focuses on the historical events, which are likely to have shaped the poet's understanding of the ‘barbaric’ world. The second section discusses the barbaric ethos presented in Medea and its contrast with the Greek ethos of that time. The section examines Euripides’ ironic approach and the questions that he raises in the minds of the Athenian spectators of the 5th century BC. The third section discusses the ‘barbaric’ elements in Iphigenia in Tauris and the way these contrast with the ‘barbaric’ notions presented in Medea. The final section concludes on the perceptions of the ‘barbaric’ world in the two tragedies by Euripides and presents their similarities and differences.

The Greek world during the time of Euripides

According to the Parian Chronicle, the birth of Euripides should be placed in 485/4 BC; despite some arguments against this date, nowadays it is widely accepted as correct (Lesky 1981, 507). In that sense, Euripides does not belong to the generation of Athenian tragic poets, who were directly influenced by the events of the two Persian Wars. Unlike Aeschylus and Sophocles, Euripides grows up during Athens’ most prosperous period, during which he also witnesses the course of the Peloponnesian War and the Athenian defeat. Despite the constant critique against the system and the indirect expression of his political views in his works, Euripides stands away from official politics and public affairs; instead he approaches the theatrical stage as a philosopher instead of an active citizen (Xifara 2001, 84-5).

The Peloponnesian War, as this is understood by Euripides, does not only lead to Athens’ decay and final defeat, but also produces a broader moral crisis in the entire Greek world. As this will be explained in more detail below, Euripides assumes an ironic stand, which does not question the ‘barbarity’ of the foreigners, but it casts doubts on the moral views and attitudes of the Greeks. In his works, Euripides incorporates the ideas of the Sophistic Movement, which flourished in Athens during the 5th century BC parallel to the Rhetoric Movement (Xifara 2001, 85). In relation to the existence of ‘barbarians’, early Sophists expressed radical views, which stood against the popular beliefs of their time. For example, Antiphon of Rhamnus (Ἀντιφῶν ὁ Ῥαμνούσιος) (480-411 BC), was the first Athenian orator to suggest that the Greeks and the ‘barbarians’ are “by nature equal” (Balla and Tsouna 2000, 85).

Flacelière (2003, 58) argues that the majority of the ‘barbarians’ who lived in Athens during the 5th century BC, were enslaved war prisoners. In the Athenian culture of the above period, the name ‘barbarian’ was synonym to slavery. With this in mind, some of the greatest philosophers of Classical antiquity, such as Plato and Aristotle, stood firmly against the popular Spartan practice of using other Greeks as slaves, and more specifically the Messenians (Flacelière 2003, 64). Based on these observations, the differences between the Greeks and the ‘barbarians’ during the 5th century BC were relatively subjective.

The most popular Athenian critique against the ‘barbarians’ targeted specific peoples or tribal groups, which although Greek-speaking, they followed practices which were considered ‘barbaric’. Demosthenes, for example, used to address the Macedonians as ‘barbarians’, as they never developed the concept of democracy. In Attic theatre, Euripides’ approach to the ‘barbarians’ is likely to have produced several doubts and questions to his fellow Athenians. For example, a major reflection in Euripides’ work is the non-division between Greeks and ‘barbarians’, as to some extent, specific ‘Greek’ behaviours could have been perceived as equally ‘barbaric’. This approach is likely to relate to Euripides’ sympathy towards the Macedonian rulers of his era. Euripides was self-exiled at the court of King Archelaus of Macedon in 408 BC, where he spend two years before he finally passed away (Lesky 1981, 511).

The ‘barbaric’ world in Medea

The tragedy Medea (Μήδεια) was first presented by Euripides in 431 BC. The story continues the myth of the Argonaut Expedition and takes place after Jason’s (Ἰάσων) return to Greece. Jason is married to Medea, a witch from the city of Colchis. They both arrive together with their two children in Corinth. Creon (Κρέων), who is the king of Corinth, convinces Jason to divorce his legal wife and marry his daughter Creusa (Κρέουσα). Furthermore, Creon plans to exile Medea and her children away from his city, and although Jason agrees with this plan, he wishes to convince Medea to hand the children over to him. As soon as Medea is informed about the plan, she becomes desperate and feels abandoned by her husband. It becomes clear to her that she will be separated from her children and she will have to wander alone in an unknown country, until she finds a place to settle and start a new life. In order to revenge Jason for his betrayal, she employs her withcraft skills and murders Creon and his daughter Creusa. At the end of the play, she commits her most atrocious crime, the murder of her own children, which is presented as a ‘barbaric’ decision, matching her ‘barbarian’ descent (Lesky 1981, 516-9).

Despite the atrocity of her crimes and instead of provoking repulsion, the ‘barbarian’ witch Medea manages to win the audience’s empathy. Medea’s acts are extreme and ‘barbaric’; however, they can be justified due to her husband’s cowardly behaviour. It is no coincidence that the chorus, which consists of Corinthian women, is backing Medea up throughout the entire play. Together with the audience’s empathy, Medea manages to win the support of the Athenian king Aegeus (Αἰγεύς). According to Lesky (1981, 518-9), Aegeus is introduced in the plot to decongest Medea’s difficult situation; he offers her an escape from Corinth, which gives her another excuse to execute her atrocious murders.

Apart from this technical contribution to the plot, it is highly likely that Aegeus is used by Euripides as a symbol of Athenian receptivity and tolerance to foreigners, both Greeks and ‘barbarians’. In ancient Athens, the words receptivity and tolerance were understood differently compared to how these are used in modern state policies, which are based on constitutions and laws. Still, the Athenian society of Euripides’ time was accustomed to ‘barbarians’ living in Athens and tolerated their behaviours, which were most likely different compared to those of the Athenians. This “right to barbarity”, as one might conventionally describe it today, was a common discussion topic among the Sophists of the 5th century BC.

The Sophistic rhetoric introduced by Euripides in Medea is used in a dual sense. Although it argues in favour of righteous concepts as explained above, it also becomes manipulated and used for the distortion of the truth. During the 5th century BC, this type of negative rhetoric was constantly criticised by Plato and most likely Socrates. During the play’s first dialogue, Jason is arguing in favour of his decisions and actions to Medea by manipulating some rational points in a similar manner, as the Sophists would have done. His arguments alter the truth and aim in deceiving Medea. He presents himself as the family’s saviour, who agrees to divorce his wife and marry another woman out of pure ‘love’ for the former. Medea (and the audience) already knows the truth and becomes angry with his cowardly, rude and calculative behaviour. She reminds him that she was the one who helped him during the Argonaut Expedition; she betrayed her own father for his sake; she killed the dragon who guarded the Golden Fleece; she saved his ship’s crew; and, she killed Pelias (Πελίας) on their return to Greece; however, Jason is ignoring her contributions. Instead of being thankful to her, he has already cheated on her, he has betrayed his marital vows, he has caused her pain and sorrow, and he has finally plotted for her exile from Corinth (Euripides, Medea, 446-626).

During this dialogue, the audience realises that Jason, who is a Greek hero, has no honour and has abandoned his moral stature; by contrast, Medea, who is a ‘barbarian’ wife, has every right to be angry with his behaviour. Medea finds Jason’s behaviour “unmanly” (Euripides, Medea, 466) and calls him “the worst of all men” (Euripides, Medea, 488). Such characterisations would have sounded embarrassing to the Athenian audience at the time of the Peloponnesian War, particularly because the Greeks regarded bravery as the ultimate virtue of men. By contrast, the ultimate disgrace was cowardice in battle, for which they used the term “shield-dropper” (ριψάσπις) to describe someone who fled the battlefield.

Bearing in mind that the play was presented a little before the beginning of the Athenian-Spartan conflict of 431 BC, it was probably too much by Euripides to present Jason, a Greek hero, as a coward and a shield-dropper. Of course, Euripides’ true aim was not to accuse Jason for his personal lack of moral virtue, but to suggest the moral decay of all Greeks during his time. To do this, Euripides uses Medea to talk about the cancellation of people’s vows to the gods and the abolition of laws in favour of personal profit (Euripides, Medea, 446-626). Such actions probably characterised Athenian politics in 431 BC, the year when the ‘Thirty Years’ Peace Treaty’ with Sparta was broken (Page 1990, 19).

Jason’s arguments for his defence against Medea’s accusations match the diplomacy and the bidirectional language of the Sophists. He refuses the fact that his wife helped him during his expedition in Colchis and he suggests that the only help he received was from goddess Aphrodite. He lectures Medea that she should be more grateful to him, as he was the one who brought her to Greece, the land of justice, which does not exist in Medea’s ‘barbaric’ homeland (Euripides, Medea, 523-79). At this point Euripides stresses the irony of Greek justice: Jason is literally practising the ‘law of the strongest’ on Medea without caring about true justice. The supposed superiority of the Greeks in contrast with the ‘barbarians’ is again mocked by Euripides when Jason explains to Medea that the Greeks honoured her wisdom: had she stayed in her homeland, she would have remained unknown (Euripides, Medea, 523-79). Of course, nothing in Jason’s behaviour seems to honour his wife.

The attitude of many Greeks is personified by Jason, who does not accept responsibility for his decisions, and uses rhetorical tricks to divert Medea from the truth and suggest that his actions are by contrast noble. Medea realises the expediency in Jason’s words and attacks back by speaking about the hypocrisy of the Greek society, which is a topic that Euripides directs to his audience: “to me, a dishonest man who talks nicely is worthy of the greatest punishment” (Euripides, Medea, 580-1). The audience knows that Jason acts according to his personal benefit, which reflects the moral crisis in the Athenian society during the time of the play. Despite her ‘barbaric’ descent, Medea is more direct and honest compared to Jason. At the end, she realises the real problem and sees that the social status of a Greek noble does not allow him “to grow old without recognition next to a barbarian woman” (Euripides, Medea, 591-2). Jason’s audacity and immoral behaviour reaches its peak when he attempts to buy his ‘barbarian’ wife’s silence with money. By contrast to Jason, Medea prefers to maintain he dignity and does not allow her consciousness to be bought off; therefore, she rejects “the gifts of a disgraceful man” (Euripides, Medea, 618).

The final monologue by Medea in verses 1019-1085 follows a climax characterised by psychological fluctuations. Medea’s maternal instincts collide with her ‘barbaric’ urge for revenge. At the end, the later prevails and Medea murders her own children. Medea’s horrific actions would not have been tolerated by the Greek audience despite its initial sympathy for the play’s main character. Jason’s punishment is disproportionate in relation to his bad deeds (Page 1990, 27). Medea’s vindication is due to divine intervention: at the end of the play she is carried away from stage on Helios’ chariot. With this escape, Medea completes her human destiny and paradoxically achieves deification through her committed crimes (Xifara 2001, 89). Through the establishment of her dead children's cult, and because of her escape after the intervention of divine forces, Medea abandons the world of fake human justice and enters the world of myth, which is not subject to human laws (Lesky 1981, 520). What Euripides achieves is an innovation: he proves that in Greek myth, even a ‘barbarian’ woman can reach to sanctification.

In conclusion, Euripides uses Medea to mock the so-called civilised Greek society of his time, particularly because of the new hostilities of the Peloponnesian War, which are about to follow. To achieve this, he introduces to his audience a barbarian woman, who represents the moral values of the Greek past, which are gradually decaying during the poet’s time. Together with the moral values of Medea, Euripides uses his protagonist to project the common stereotypes of his era in relation to the ‘barbarians’. This is why Medea is presented to be possessed by excessive passions, to be overly expressive in mourning and grieving, to be unable to comply with the laws and the commands of the most powerful men, and of course, not to be able to forgive her husband’s lies and deception against her. In a religious context, Medea represents stereotypical barbarian habits. She knows how to practise witchcraft and she worships the Sun (Helios), features that comply with contemporary Anatolian religions. Finally, she is characterised by typically ‘barbarian’ cruelty against human life, which is powerful enough to abrogate her maternal instincts and lead her to the murder of her own children (Page 1990, 30-1).

The barbaric world in Iphigenia in Tauris

Iphigenia in Tauris was first played sometime between 414 BC and 411 BC (Xifara 2001, 96), a period coinciding with the Sicilian Campaign and Athens' defeat in the second phase of the Peloponnesian War. The story is about Orestes (Ὀρέστης), the son of Agamemnon (Ἀγαμέμνων), and his cousin Pylades (Πυλάδης), the son of Strophius (Στρόφιος), who arrive at the barbarian city of Tauris. They have been assigned a mission by goddess Athena to steal the sacred statue of goddess Artemis from the local temple and transfer it back to Athens. Iphigenia, the youngest sister of Orestes, who was abducted by goddess Artemis a little before her sacrifice in Aulis, is now located in Tauris. She is a priestess at the temple of Artemis, where the locals perform human sacrifices at her name, and Iphigenia’s job is to prepare the foreign captives for such sacrifices. During their attempt to reach the temple, Orestes and Pylades are captured by local shepherds, and are brought to the temple to be executed. Orestes recognises his sister, he reveals his true identity, and Iphigenia agrees to help the two Greeks in order to steal the sacred statue and escape together back to Greece (Lesky 1981, 543-5).

The main concept of ‘barbarity’ in Iphigenia in Tauris is human sacrifice. The people of Tauris execute foreign visitors in order to gratify goddess Artemis. Although the cult of Artemis is mutually shared between the Greeks and the ‘barbarians’, the concept of piety differs between the two cultures. In the play, piety that is based on human sacrifices according to the customs of Tauris cannot be tolerated by Iphigenia, who wishes to serve the goddess according to the customs of her own homeland. When the two youths, Orestes and Pylades, appear in front of Iphigenia for the first time, she stresses to them that human sacrifices stand away for the Greeks customs (Lesky 1989, 230-1). Via Iphigenia, Euripides challenges the traditional views regarding the cult of Artemis: the goddess forbids access to her temple to those who are contaminated after the spilling human blood; however, she allows human sacrifices from her followers inside the same temple. Furthermore, the arguments presented by Iphigenia against human sacrifices appear aligned with the ideas of the Sophists, which were explained in the previous section. They demonstrate a ‘relaxed’ approach towards divine cults by the Greeks and a repulsion towards ‘extreme’ religious practices. Euripides is also likely to note a similarity between the ‘barbarian’ customs and the practices of the Spartans during his time. In the play, the people of Tauris execute foreigners because they feel threatened or insulted by their customs. In Classical Sparta, foreigners who were regarded a threat to public interest were expelled from the city in a violent manner (Flacelière 2003, 59). This specific practice was most likely seen as ‘barbaric’ by the Athenians, who had a reputation to be more welcoming to their visitors.

The plot of Iphigenia in Tauris takes place in a foreign and ‘barbaric’ land. Euripides shows the reception of the Greeks in the ‘barbaric’ cosmos and their reaction to the ‘barbarian’ mentality. In her attempt to help the two Greeks, Iphigenia employs her cunning skills to deceive king Thoas (Θόας), who is presented as a pious and naive ‘barbarian’. Iphigenia convinces Thoas that the two prisoners are contaminated as they are guilty of matricide. She explains to him that both prisoners and the goddess’ statue must be carried to the beach to be bathed and purified with sea-water. Of course, this is just an excuse to lead the two Greeks closer to their ship, so that they can all escape from Tauris, together with the sacred statue (Leski 1981, 544). Thoas does not suspect the plot and since he is pious, he truly believes that Iphigenia is acting on behalf of Artemis. Although Thoas is a ‘barbarian’, he is characterised by advanced moral instincts; he is shocked when he hears about Orestes’ matricide and cannot believe the atrocity of such deeds. Thoas says that such crime would have not even been committed by the worst of the ‘barbarians’ (Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris, 1174); yet, it has been committed by one of the Greeks .

During her conversation with Thoas in verses 1152-1233, Iphigenia speaks with confidence and admiration about the wisdom and the piety of the Greeks when it comes to religious matters; however, the audience realises that this wisdom is just another expression of deception, so that Iphigenia can achieve her hidden goals. Euripides presents Greek wisdom as a concept full of irony and lies, which matches the wisdom of the Sophists. The structure of Iphigenia’s arguments to Thoas resembles the arguments presented by Jason to Medea, which were discussed in the previous section.

Another common feature shared between Iphigenia in Tauris and Medea is the subjectivity of murder in the ‘barbaric’ cosmos. Euripides poses a series of question, which are evident in both plays, and challenge the perception of murder in the Greek and the ‘barbarian’ cultures. What is more barbaric? The murder of Medea’s children by her own mother? Or is it Orestes’ matricide? Is it Iphigenia's’ sacrifice in Aulis by her own father on Artemis’ request? Or is it the human sacrifices of the Taurians in the name of the same goddess? Such comparisons are likely to demonstrate that Euripides follows the principles of the Sophistic movement to question whether religion could form a criterion for the diversification between Greeks and ‘barbarians’.

Conclusions

The comparison of the two plays shows the different positions of the two female protagonists in relation the Greek world. Medea is a ‘barbarian’ who fails to adjust in the Greek reality of her time, while Iphigenia is a Greek who fails to adjust in the customs of the barbarians. Euripides shows that the ideas and the moral beliefs of the two cultures differ; however, he doubts that the ‘barbarian’ moral cosmos is inferior to the Greek.

Although Medea is a ‘barbarian’, she sees the relationship with her husband and her children as a bond of blood. By contrast to Medea, Jason sees the same relationship as an issue of legal compromise. Medea is overwhelmed by exaggeration; her personality is torrential and she shows no respect to laws and authority. According to the Greek popular beliefs of Euripides’ era, such elements characterised the behaviour of the barbarians. On the other hand, Jason, who is Greek and is supposed to respect the Greek customs and laws, is presented as a cunning and lying coward, who is afraid to admit the truth.

Both Medea and the people of Tauris are characterised by cold-blooded and murderous instincts. Medea murders her own children to satisfy her passion for revenge against Jason, while the people of Tauris conduct human sacrifices to express their piety to a Greek goddess. Although this is true, Euripides poses an interesting question: is this ‘barbaric’ behaviour different compared to what the Greeks do? According to the myths, Orestes avenges the death of his father by murdering his own mother. Agamemnon consciously sacrifices his own daughter to Artemis, not because of his piety, but in order to satisfy his military ambitions (Georgousopoulos 1990, 106-7).

In both plays, Euripides produces an interaction between ‘barbaric’ and Greek cultural features, which allow the audience to spot the similarities and differences between the two, and question what is though to be uncivilised and civilised. Through this comparison, Euripides wishes to comment on the decline of moral values during his own era, which corresponds to the lack of division between what is perceived as Greek and what is perceived as ‘barbarian’. Secondly, the poet wishes to stress the common origins and common culture of the Greeks, which characterises their way of life despite any moral decline. Euripides sees Greek culture and the Greek way of life as unifying features of all Greek city-states; therefore, he disagrees when Greeks fight against Greeks during the Peloponnesian War. Even Aeschylus, the predecessor of Euripides, focuses on the idealisation of the Greek way of life, at a time when the Greeks had defeated the ‘barbarians’ in order to protect it. Thirdly, Euripides introduces a philosophical innovation borrowed from the Sophists: the Greeks and the ‘barbarians’ are examined as two different cultural groups, yet equal in relation to their behaviours and moral values. In this approach, the ‘barbarians’ are portrayed to follow different customs compared to the Greeks, but they are not see as inferior to the former.

To conclude, both plays present a balanced view of the Greek and the ‘barbarian’ cosmos, without any intention to stress the superiority or inferiority of any of the two systems of thought. The winner of the comparison between the two is the female protagonist, whether this is Medea of Iphigenia. The ‘barbaric’ and the Greek elements contrast in order to bring forward the dynamic nature of the female protagonists, who win the audience's understanding and sympathy.

Bibliography

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Original sources

Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris, translated by K.Ch. Myris and published in Konstantopoulou (2001)
Euripides, Medea, translated by G. Cheimonas and published in Konstantopoulou (2001)