The Fall of Troy, the Glory of Athens: Chorus and Community in Euripides’ Trojan Women

This chapter explores the dynamics of interaction between the two communities involved in the first production of Euripides’ Troades, namely the fictitious community of Troy, constantly evoked throughout the play, and the Athenian civic body taking part in the dramatic festival. The paper’s main claim is that, within the choral interventions of Troades, Euripides projects Athens onto Troy by blurring the boundaries between their civic identities. Focusing on the first stasimon, the discussion argues that various concomitant factors (poetic tradition, use of ‘choral projection’, imagery related to Panathenaea) were intended to encourage an assimilation of the Trojan women’s perspective on the part of the audience.