You may be thinking why in the world are we reading a play from ancient Greece, a play filled with references to mythic places and characters, and a tragedy to boot; why not stick to the modern Hollywood "happy-ever after" tales, also filled with mythic places and characters? Well, the Greeks were the original masters of the dramatic art form as well influential in providing POSTERITY (that's us) with, in addition to models of art and sport, examples of democratic government (city-states), origins of philosophical thought (Socrates, Plato), and thousands of words. In a lot of ways, on the tree of human civilization, we are direct descendants of the Greeks, so, in a sense, you're studying about your own history here. So the next time you hear the cliché "It's all Greek to me," just remember that your government, language, and dramatic entertainment, all were born in classical Greek civilization. Now, I bet you'll never believe the origins of theater in Greece...click here to begin.

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