Part 6

EURIP'IDES, the last of the three great Greek writers of tragedies, was born about 480 B.C., and died 406 B.C. Tradition declares that he was born at Salamis, on the very day of the Greek naval victory there. He was, as far as we can tell, of good birth; at any rate, he was well educated, and was able to live a life of ease and leisure, and to collect one of the largest libraries of the time. The comic poets, especially Aristophanes, delighted to say that his mother, Cleito, was a cabbage-woman, but there is probably little or no truth in this statement. Euripides was originally trained as an athlete, but conceived an intense dislike for that occupation. Greatly daring, he expressed his view openly (Fragment 284). Like a popular modern dramatist, his recreation was probably 'anything except sport'. He then took to painting, but abandoned it in favour of writing tragedies. His first play (not preserved), the _Peliades_, was produced when he was twenty-five years of age. He is said to have written ninety-two dramas, eight of which were satyr-plays. Ancient critics allow seventy-five of these to have been genuine. During his long career he only won the first prize five times. Euripides did not take any part in public life, but devoted himself entirely to a life of speculation and to writing plays. There is a tradition, not, however, on a very firm basis, that he was twice married, and that both marriages were failures. He is represented by Aristophanes as a woman-hater, but indeed he portrays women more sympathetically than Aeschylus or Sophocles. The women had little cause to congratulate themselves on securing Aristophanes as a champion, for his scorpions are far more stinging then Euripides' whips. Euripides left Athens about 409 B.C., and went to the court of King Archelaus in Macedonia. There he died in 406 B.C.; according to some accounts, he was killed by savage dogs which were set on him by some of his rivals at the king's court.

Seventeen tragedies and one satyr-play have been preserved to us. The latter (_The Cyclops_) is interesting as being the only example of a satyr-play which we possess. In itself it is not amusing. It has been admirably translated by Shelley. The seventeen tragedies in the order of their production are: _Alcestis_, _Medea_, _Hippolytus_, _Hecuba_, _Andromache_, _Ion_, _Suppliants_, _Heracleidae_, _Hercules Furens_, _Iphigenia among the Tauri_, _Trojan Women_, _Helena_, _Phoenissae_, _Electra_, _Orestes_, _Iphigenia at Aulis_, and _The Bacchae_. The _Rhesus_, a feeble production long attributed to Euripides, is almost certainly not his work.

The work of Euripides still retains the power of arousing strong likes and dislikes. He has had sturdy supporters and fanatical detractors. The truth is that if the tragedies of Aeschylus and Sophocles are looked upon as models for all Greek tragedy, Euripides falls far short of his models. Euripides, however, though he died shortly before Sophocles, belonged to a younger and quite different generation, and held different views about art, morality, religion, and almost everything of importance. His aim was rather different from that of the earlier poets, and he must be judged, not by their standards, but on his own merits. His own merits are amply sufficient to justify the high opinion held of him in the ancient world, and supported by many of the greatest of the moderns. The dethroning of Euripides was the result of a German conspiracy, carried out with much energy by Niebuhr, and with even more by Schlegel. They enjoyed themselves while pulling Euripides to pieces much as schoolboys who have detected a flaw in the armour of their master. Many proofs can be adduced that Euripides was not a sophistical trifler; but one glance at his bust is enough to assure anyone of unbiased judgment that he was a man of remarkable breadth of mind and intellectual gifts. The fact remains, however, that the extant plays of Euripides are of very unequal merit. The _Helena_ is not a good play; it was ridiculed by Aristophanes, but he did not succeed in making it much more absurd than it was already. The _Hecuba_ and the _Heracleidae_ are not well constructed, and the _Electra_ and _Orestes_ challenge too directly the masterpieces of the earlier tragedians. In his greatest plays, however, Euripides can bear comparison with any poet. The _Medea_ is a play which still never fails to please; the _Hippolytus_ and the _Ion_ are admirable dramas and admirably constructed; above all, the _Bacchae_ is a masterpiece, more picturesque than any other Greek tragedy, a play not unworthy to be set near _The Tempest_ and _Cymbeline_.

Euripides has been accused by his detractors of degrading his art, because he opened his plays with a prologue and ended them with the intervention of a god. Both devices, if not desirable, are quite pardonable. Possible plots were becoming more and more scarce; Euripides did not wish to adopt trite themes, and so went into the by-ways of mythology, or adopted a less well-known alternative version of a well-known legend. He could not count on his audience already possessing enough knowledge of the story to enable them to understand his plays without a prologue. The _deus ex machina_, as the god who ends some of the plays is called, was often warranted or required by the plot which called for a conventional ending. Euripides has also been accused, by Aristophanes and by many less entertaining writers, of taking away all the dignity of tragedy. It is quite true that he is a realist. Sophocles represented men as they ought to be, Euripides represented them as they were. This was an unforgiveable offence in the eyes of the 'men of Marathon' at Athens. The tragic heroes were not mere stage characters, they considered; they were often ancestors or national heroes, and it was impious to represent them as speaking ordinary language, or sharing the weaknesses of ordinary men. Euripides did do this, did it intentionally, and did it excellently. He came at an awkward transition period, and the lack of success of some of his work is owing to the impossibility of pouring new wine into old bottles. The old tragedy was too tightly bound by convention to suit Euripides, who wished to portray living men and women, and to have an exciting plot. The new comedy--the romantic comedy of Menander--had not yet been invented. Had it been, Euripides would surely have written comedies. The comic poets of the next century turned to him for a model, and it was one of them, Philemon, who said that if he were quite sure that dead men retained their perception he would hang himself to see Euripides. Euripides is, in fact, the earliest writer of romantic plays, a fact well illustrated by his _Alcestis_, which is one of his best plays. In it tragedy and comedy are harmoniously blended, and it has a happy ending.

For better and for worse Euripides is a very modern poet, and makes a special appeal to the present generation. But his pathos, his wide sympathies, and his wonderful poetry have appealed to the best judges in all ages. Theocritus, Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Milton, and Browning have been among his admirers; his detractors include a few Teutonic professors, and a few who honour the memory of Aeschylus and Sophocles on the other side idolatry.--BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. W. Verrall, _Euripides the Rationalist_; G. G. A. Murray, _Euripides and his Age_ (Home University Library); W. B. Donne, _Euripides_ (Ancient Classics for English Readers); Sir J. P. Mahaffy, Euripides: _an Account of his Life and Works_; N. J. Patin, _Etude sur Euripide_; P. Masqueray, _Euripide et ses idees_. There is a complete verse translation by A. S. Way, and verse translations of several plays by G. G. A. Murray. There is a 'transcript' of the _Alcestis_ in Browning's _Balaustion's Adventure_, and of the _Hercules Furens_ in his _Aristophanes' Apology_.

EURIPUS ([=u]-r[=i]'pus), in ancient geography, the strait between the Island of Euboea and Boeotia in Greece.

EUROC'LYDON, a tempestuous wind of the Levant, which was the occasion of the shipwreck of the vessel in which St. Paul sailed, as narrated in _Acts_, XXVII, 14-44. The north-east wind is the wind evidently meant in the narrative; and an alternative reading adopted in the revised version is _euraculon_ (euraquilo) or north-easter.

EURO'PA, in Greek mythology, the daughter of Ag[=e]nor, King of the Phoenicians, and the sister of Cadmus. The fable relates that she was abducted by Jupiter, who for that occasion had assumed the form of a white bull, and swam with his prize to the Island of Crete. Here Europa bore to him Minos, Sarp[=e]don, and Rhadamanthus.

EUROPE, the smallest of the great continents, but the most important in the history of civilization for the last two thousand years. It forms a huge peninsula projecting from Asia, and is bounded on the north by the Arctic Ocean; on the west by the Atlantic Ocean; on the south by the Mediterranean, the Black Sea, and the Caucasus Range; on the east by the Caspian Sea, the Ural River, and the Ural Mountains. The most northerly point on the mainland is Cape Nordkyn, in Lapland, in lat. 71deg 6'; the most southerly points are Punta da Tarifa, lat. 36deg N., in the Strait of Gibraltar, and Cape Matapan, lat. 36deg 17', which terminates Greece. The most westerly point is Cape Roca in Portugal, in long. 9deg 28' W., while Ekaterinburg is in long. 60deg 36' E. From Cape Matapan to North Cape is a direct distance of 2400 miles, from Cape St. Vincent to Ekaterinburg, north-east by east, 3400 miles; area of the continent, about 3,865,000 sq. miles. Great Britain and Ireland, Iceland, Novaya Zemlya, Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily, Malta, Crete, the Ionian and the Balearic Islands are the chief islands of Europe. The shores are very much indented, giving Europe an immense length of coast-line (estimated at nearly 50,000 miles). The chief seas or arms of the sea are: the White Sea on the north; the North Sea on the west, from which branches off the great gulf or inland sea known as the Baltic; the English Channel, between England and France; the Mediterranean, communicating with the Atlantic by the Strait of Gibraltar (at one point only 19 miles wide); the Adriatic and Archipelago, branching off from the Mediterranean: and the Black Sea, connected with the Archipelago through the Hellespont, Sea of Marmora, and Bosporus.

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_Surface._--The mountains form several distinct groups or systems of very different geological dates, the loftiest mountain masses being in the south central region. The Scandinavian mountains in the north-west, to which the great northern peninsula owes its form, extend above 900 miles from the Polar Sea to the south point of Norway. The highest summits are about 8000 feet. The Alps, the highest mountains in Europe (unless Mount Elbruz in the Caucasus is claimed as European), extend from the Mediterranean first in a northerly and then in an easterly direction, and attain their greatest elevation in Mont Blanc (15,780 feet), Monte Rosa, and other summits. Branching off from the Alps, though not geologically connected with them, are the Apennines, which run south-east through Italy, constituting the central ridge of the peninsula. The highest summit is Monte Corno (9541 feet). Mount Vesuvius, the celebrated volcano in the south of the peninsula, is quite distinct from the Apennines. By south-eastern extensions the Alps are connected with the Balkan and the Despoto-Dagh of the south-eastern peninsula of Europe. Among the mountains of South-Western Europe are several massive chains, the loftiest summits being in the Pyrenees, and in the Sierra Nevada in the south of the Iberian Peninsula. The highest point in the former, La Maladetta or Mount Maudit, has an elevation of 11,165 feet; Mulahacen, in the latter, is 11,703 feet, and capped by perpetual snow. West and north-west of the Alps are the Cevennes, Jura, and Vosges; north and north-east, the Harz, the Thueringerwald Mountains, the Fichtelgebirge, the Erzgebirge and Boehmerwaldgebirge. Farther to the east the Carpathian chain encloses the great plain of Hungary, attaining an elevation of 8000 or 8500 feet. The Ural Mountains between Europe and Asia reach the height of 5540 feet. Besides Vesuvius, other two volcanoes are Etna in Sicily, and Hecla in Iceland. A great part of Northern and Eastern Europe is level. The _great plain_ of North Europe occupies part of France, Western and Northern Belgium, Holland, the northern provinces of Germany, and the greater part of Russia. A large portion of this plain, extending through Holland and North Germany, is a low sandy level not infrequently protected from inroads of the sea only by means of strong dykes. The other great plains of Europe are the Plain of Lombardy (the most fertile district in Europe) and the Plain of Hungary. Part of Southern and South-Eastern Russia consists of steppes.

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_Rivers and Lakes._--The main European watershed runs in a winding direction from south-west to north-east, at its north-eastern extremity being of very slight elevation. From the Alps descend some of the largest of the European rivers, the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Po, while the Danube, a still greater stream, rises in the Black Forest north of the Alps. The Volga, which enters the Caspian Sea, an inland sheet without outlet, is the longest of European rivers, having a direct length of nearly 1700 miles, including windings 2400 miles. Into the Mediterranean flow the Ebro, the Rhone, and the Po; into the Black Sea, the Danube, Dnieper, Dniester, and Don (through the Sea of Azov); into the Atlantic, the Guadalquivir, the Guadiana, the Tagus, and Loire: into the English Channel, the Seine; into the North Sea, the Rhine, Elbe; into the Baltic, the Oder, the Vistula, and the Duna; into the Arctic Ocean, the Dvina. The lakes of Europe may be divided into two groups, the southern and the northern. The former run along both sides of the Alps, and among them, on the north side, are the lakes of Geneva, Neuchatel, Thun, Lucerne, Zuerich, and Constance; on the south side, Lago Maggiore, and the lakes of Como, Lugano, Iseo, and Garda. The northern lakes extend across Sweden from west to east, and on the east side of the Baltic a number of lakes, stretching in the same direction across Finland on the borders of Russia, mark the continuation of the line of depression. It is in Russia that the largest European lakes are found--Lakes Ladoga and Onega.

_Geology._--The geological features of Europe are exceedingly varied. The older formations prevail in the northern part as compared with the southern half and the middle region. North of the latitude of Edinburgh and Moscow there is very little of the surface of more recent origin than the strata of the Upper Jura belonging to the Mesozoic period, and there are vast tracts occupied either by eruptive rocks or one or other of the older sedimentary formations. Denmark belongs to the Cretaceous period, as does also a large part of Russia between the Volga and the basin of the Dnieper. Middle and Eastern Germany, with Poland and the valley of the Dnieper, present on the surface Eocene formations of the Tertiary period. The remainder of Europe is remarkable for the great diversity of its superficial structure, rocks and deposits belonging to all periods being found within it, and having for the most part no great superficial extent. Europe possesses abundant stores of those minerals which are of most importance to man, such as coal and iron, Britain being particularly favoured in this respect. Coal and iron are also obtained in France, Belgium, and Germany. Gold is found to an unimportant extent, and silver is widely spread in small quantities. The richest silver ores are in Norway, Spain, the Erzgebirge, and the Harz Mountains. Spain is also rich in quicksilver. Copper ores are abundant in the Ural Mountains, Thuringia, Cornwall, and Spain. Tin ores are found in Cornwall, the Erzgebirge, and Brittany.

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_Climate._--Several circumstances concur to give Europe a climate peculiarly genial, such as its position almost wholly within the temperate zone, and the great extent of its maritime boundaries. Much benefit is also derived from the fact that its shores are exposed to the warm marine currents and warm winds from the south-west, which prevent the formation of ice on most of its northern shores. The eastern portion has a less favourable climate than the western. The extremes of temperature are greater, the summer being hotter and the winter colder, while the lines of equal mean temperature decline south as we go east. The same advantages of mild and genial temperature which western has over eastern Europe, the continent collectively has over the rest of the Old World. The diminution of mean temperature, as well as the intensity of the opposite seasons, increases as we go east. Peking, in lat. 40deg N., has as severe a winter as Petrograd in lat. 60deg N.

_Vegetable Productions._--With respect to the vegetable kingdom, Europe may be divided into four zones. The first, or most northern, is that of fir and birch. The birch reaches almost to North Cape; the fir ceases a degree farther south. The cultivation of grain extends farther north than might be supposed. Barley ripens even under the seventieth parallel of north latitude; wheat ceases at 64deg in Norway, 62deg in Sweden. Within this zone, the southern limit of which extends from lat. 64deg in Norway to lat. 62deg in Russia, agriculture has little importance, its inhabitants being chiefly occupied with the care of reindeer or cattle, and in fishing. The next zone, which may be called that of the oak and beech, and cereal produce, extends from the limit above mentioned to the forty-eighth parallel. The Alps, though beyond the limit, by reason of their elevation belong to this zone, in the moister parts of which cattle husbandry has been brought to perfection. Next we find the zone of the chestnut and vine, occupying the space between the forty-eighth parallel and the mountain chains of Southern Europe. Here the oak still flourishes, but the pine species become rarer. Rye, which characterizes the preceding zone on the continent, gives way to wheat, and in the southern portion of it to maize also. The fourth zone, comprehending the southern peninsulas, is that of the olive and evergreen woods. The orange flourishes in the southern portion of it, and rice and even cotton are cultivated in some places in Italy and Spain.

_Animals._--As regards animals, the reindeer and polar-bears are peculiar to the north. In the forests of Poland and Lithuania the urus, a species of wild ox, is still occasionally met with. Bears and wolves still inhabit the forests and mountains; but, in general, cultivation and population have expelled wild animals. The domesticated animals are nearly the same throughout. The ass and mule lose their size and beauty north of the Pyrenees and Alps. The Mediterranean Sea has many species of fish, but no great fishery; the northern seas, on the other hand, are annually filled with countless shoals of a few species, chiefly the herring, mackerel, cod, and salmon.

_Inhabitants._--Europe is occupied by several different peoples or races, in many parts now greatly intermingled. The Celts once possessed the west of Europe from the Alps to the British Islands. But the Celtic nationalities were broken by the wave of Roman conquest, and the succeeding invasions of the Germanic tribes completed their political ruin. At the present day the Celtic language is spoken only in the Scottish Highlands (Gaelic), in some parts of Ireland (Irish), in Wales (Cymric), and in Brittany (Armorican). Next to the Celtic comes the Teutonic race, comprehending the Germanic and Scandinavian branches. The former includes the Germans, the Dutch, and the English. The Scandinavians are divided into Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians. To the east, in general, of the Teutonic race, though sometimes mixed with it, come the Slavonians, that is, the Russians, the Poles, the Czechs or Bohemians, the Serbians, Croatians, &c. In the south and south-east of Europe are the Greek and Latin peoples, the latter comprising the Italians, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. All the above peoples are regarded as belonging to the Indo-European or Aryan stock. To the Mongolian stock belong the Turks, Finns, Lapps, and Magyars or Hungarians, all immigrants into Europe in comparatively recent times. The Basques at the western extremity of the Pyrenees are a people whose affinities have not yet been determined. The total population of Europe is about 400 millions; nine-tenths speak the languages of the Indo-European family, the Teutonic group, the Slavonic, and the Latin. The prevailing religion is the Christian, embracing the Roman Catholic Church, which is the most numerous, the various sects of Protestants (Lutheran, Calvinistic, Anglican, Baptists, Methodists, &c.), and the Greek Church. A part of the inhabitants profess the Jewish, a part the Mohammedan religion.

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_Political Divisions._--In 1921 Europe consisted of the following independent states, kingdoms, or republics: Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czecho-Slovakia, Denmark, Esthonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Great Britain and Ireland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands (Holland), Norway, Poland, Portugal, Roumania, Russia, Serbia (Yugo-Slavia), Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine. Of these the following were kingdoms: Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, Montenegro, Netherlands (Holland), Norway, Serbia (Yugo-Slavia), Spain, and Sweden. Turkey (whose possessions in Europe were limited to Constantinople) was an empire, Luxemburg was a grand-duchy, Liechtenstein and Monaco principalities, whilst all the other European states were republics.