Electra portrays them as being. Orestes stabs Clytemestra’s lover in the back after he had hospitably
invited Orestes, not knowing his identity, to share in a ritual sacrifice and feast; Clytemestra is lured to
her death by a fictitious report that Electra has just given birth and she comes to perform the standard
ritual of purification for her daughter and grandchild, displaying the maternal feelings that Electra had
insistently claimed that she lacked.
Figure 56 Lucanian red-figure calyx-krater attributed to the Policoro Painter, showing Medea in an
airborne chariot drawn by serpents, with Jason (bottom left) and the bodies of their children (right);
height of vase 50.5 cm, ca. 400 BC. The Cleveland Museum of Art.
Source: Cleveland Museum of Art, OH, USA / Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund 1991.1 / Bridgeman Images.
The impact of Euripidean drama is produced not only by emotional but by intellectual means. A striking
feature of Euripides’ tragedies is the extent to which his characters are capable of articulating their state
of mind and justifying their actions in well-organized and clearly expressed speeches. Athenian
democracy encouraged the development of formal, public oratory and attracted from all over Greece
skilled teachers of public speaking and argumentation. Euripides’ audience was therefore accustomed to
hearing closely argued debates both in the assembly and in the law courts. As we have seen (p. 171),
these practices are reflected in Thucydides’ use of pairs of speeches in his history of the Peloponnesian
War. Euripides, too, often presents the dramatic conflict in the form of a debate in which two characters
deliver formal speeches, sometimes refuting the opposing argument point by point. In Medea, for
example, there is an extraordinary scene in which Medea condemns Jason to his face, listing the benefits