The Story Archive

The Suppliant Women

Euripides · c. 423 BCE · Play · Greek · Classical

The mothers of the champions killed attacking Thebes come as suppliants to Eleusis, asking Theseus and Athens to recover the bodies Thebes will not release for burial, and a Theban herald arrives to argue that Athens should mind its own affairs. The two men debate democracy against tyranny, an army goes out for the dead, and the funeral rites bring the widow of Capaneus to her husband's pyre. A patriotic occasional piece written close to the Athenian recovery of the dead at Delion, it is usually counted among the slighter surviving plays.

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