Practice question · Numerical answer
Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides are the three tragedians who survive complete. How many complete tragedies do the three preserve between them?
Hints
- Seven, seven and eighteen, roughly.
- Aeschylus 7, Sophocles 7, Euripides 18, add them.
Show the answer
32 (answers within ±1 count)
Why
32 complete tragedies: seven from Aeschylus, seven from Sophocles and eighteen from Euripides. Euripides survives in greater numbers largely by accident, an alphabetical run of his plays came through in a single manuscript, which is why we have several of his that were never school texts.
Practise The Canon, Tradition and the Idea of a Classic
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