Major tragedian of Athens (c.480-407 BC) whose plays explore human emotions: from religious ecstasy (the Bacchae) to the desperation of a thwarted woman driven to infanticide (Medea), and obsessive lust (of Phaedra for her stepson in Hippolytus). Euripides was inventive and controversial, prepared to question the justice of war when Athens was in the midst of one, and ready to rewrite myths for emotional impact.