The center of the play is Hecuba, the exiled queen of Troy, and her sorrow at the death of her family and her city at the end of the Trojan War. In Euripides' play, the ladies of Troy are depicted after their city has been taken over, their husbands have been killed, and their remaining families have been sold into slavery. Athena and Poseidon, two Greek gods, are talking about how to punish the Greek soldiers for tolerating Ajax the Lesser's rape of Cassandra as the story opens.Upon her arrival, the widowed princess Andromache finds that her youngest daughter, Polyxena, had been killed by her mother's enemies.The Greek authorities are worried that the little kid would one-day exact revenge on his father Hector. She is still alive, as is made clear in the book's conclusion.Many of the Trojan ladies mourn the loss of the land that gave them a good upbringing throughout the book. Hecuba in particular makes it clear that Troy had been her home her entire life, only for her to see herself as an elderly grandmother witnessing the destruction of Troy, the deaths of her husband, her children, and her grandchildren before being sold into slavery by Odysseus.
Ancient Greek playwright Euripides (c. 480-c. 406 BC) was well-known in classical Athens. He is one of the three playwrights from antiquity whose works have not all been preserved. Around 480 BC, he was born on Salamis Island to Cleito (his mother) and Mnesarchus, a merchant from a hamlet close to Athens. In 455 BC, Euripides made his debut at the renowned City Dionysia theatrical festival in Athens. His books, together with those of Aeschylus and Sophocles, show a disparity in the three authors' worldviews. The chronology of Euripides' plays also reveals that his perspective may have evolved. Citizens in Athens were accustomed to hyperbole in the legislature and courts. The language of Euripides' characters is revealed to be flawed, and they are self-conscious about speaking formally. A social gathering for "publicly the maintenance and development of mental infrastructure" took place in Euripides' tragedy from the fifth century. Compared to Aeschylus and Sophocles, his characters discussed the present in a more contentious and caustic manner, at times even questioning the democratic system. Although the exact circumstances of his death are unknown, it is believed that he allegedly passed away in Macedonia in 406 BC, after being assaulted by King Archelaus's Molossian hounds.
