The Trojan Women Euripides - The play begins with the god Poseidon lamenting the fall of Troy. He is joined by the goddess Athena, who is incensed by the Greeks exoneration of Ajax the Lessers actions in dragging away the Trojan princess Cassandra from Athena's temple (and possibly raping her). Together, the two gods discuss ways to punish the Greeks, and conspire to destroy the home-going Greek ships in revenge.

Euripides (Ancient Greek: ) (ca. 480 BC406 BC) was the last of the three great tragedians of classical Athens (the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles). Ancient scholars thought that Euripides had written ninety-five plays, although four of those were probably written by Critias. Eighteen of Euripides' plays have survived complete. It is now widely believed that what was thought to be a nineteenth, Rhesus, was probably not by Euripides. Fragments, some substantial, of most of the other plays also survive. More of his plays have survived than those of Aeschylus and Sophocles together, partly because of the chance preservation of a manuscript that was probably part of a complete collection of his works in alphabetical order.