(The
testimonia, or ancient notices, about Euripides' life are collected and translated in David Kovacs's
Euripidea, 1994.) Furthermore, it is only occasionally that the poet's work can be related to anything known about his life or to the public events of Athens's history. Thus, little about the life of Euripedes can be said with any assurance.
Euripides was born about the year 484 B.C. His father was Mnesarchus (or Mnesarchides). Despite a repeated joke in Aristophanes' Frogs (405 B.C.) that Euripides' mother, Cleito, was a vegetable seller, reliable evidence shows that she came from a noble family. Euripides grew up in the deme, or village, of Phlya, north of Mount Hymettus in northern Attica. An inscription there, recorded by Theophrastus, commemorates his serving as wine pourer for the sons of leading families who danced in honor of Apollo Delios. Another notice makes him torchbearer in a procession in honor of Apollo Zosterios. Both these positions suggest that Euripides came from a prominent family. Nothing about his education is known: tradition gives him a variety of philosophers as teachers, but the connections are mostly impossible on chronological grounds.
