Peliades facts for kids

Peliades (Ancient Greek: Πελιάδες) was one of the first plays written by the ancient Greek writer Euripides. He presented this play at a big festival called the Dionysia in 455 BC, but it did not win the competition. In Greek mythology, the Peliades were the daughters of a king named Pelias.

What the Play Was About

The play Peliades told the sad story of King Pelias and his daughters. In the story, the daughters were tricked into harming their father by Medea. Medea was helping Jason and the Argonauts. She made the daughters believe she could make their old father young again.

Medea showed them a trick where she seemed to make an old ram young. She told the daughters that if they cut their father into pieces and boiled him, he would become young too. The daughters, wanting to help their father, followed her instructions. But it was a trick, and King Pelias died.

Euripides and His Plays

Euripides was a very famous writer of tragedy plays in ancient Greece. He lived from about 480 BC to 406 BC. His plays often explored deep human feelings and difficult choices. He wrote about 90 plays, but only 19 of them are still around today. Peliades is one of his lost plays, meaning we no longer have the full text.

Some experts believe that Euripides' play Peliades might have been inspired by another famous play. This was Aeschylus's play Agamemnon, which was performed a few years earlier in 458 BC. Both plays might have started with a signal, like a fire, to begin the main action.