The story pattern of human sacrifice is more prominent in the dramaturgy of Euripides than in Aeschylus and Sophocles. Since most of the Euripidean tragedies of this category were produced in the course of the Peloponnesian War, the theme of sacrifice may be read as a parable for the human cost of the long conflict. Tracking the evolution of this theme throughout Euripides’ oeuvre —from the early Phrixus and Heraclidae, through Hecuba and Iphigenia in Tauris, to the late Phoenissae and Iphigenia in Aulis— allows us to trace a curve of the poet’s reactions towards the consequences of the war on the life of the implicated communities. Euripides’ Erechtheus, produced in 423 or 422, is better understood in the context of this dramaturgical trend. In Erechtheus, the sacrifice of the Athenian king’s daughter initiates a devastating series of further deaths, which finally annihilate the royal family and leave queen Praxithea alone in the world. The play thus offers a meditation on human loss at the end of the Archidamian war.
