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Euripides Impiety And Atheism

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The emergence of impiety during the fifth century Athens was by no least a coincidence. In 430 BCE the Peloponnesian War began where the powerful Athenian state desperately tried to grip onto the lands they once controlled through the Delian League, as the Spartans defeated them in a costly war with the price of Athenian lives and pillaged homes. Athens not only had to deal with the enemies outside on the borders of their territory but had to endure through a deadly plague that inflicted death and fear in the lives of Athenian citizens. The Peloponnesian War was a horrible blow to Athens pride as a powerful Greek city-state and society as they knew it was crumbling beneath the foundations of their political and religious ideologies. The Athenian …show more content…

75) (2). In Euripides "Hippolytus" it is the young half-son Hippolytus who refuses to honour the goddess, Aphrodite calling her, "A god of nocturnal prowess is not my god." (lines 106) (3). His declaration of not praising Aphrodite unlike his devoted attachment to the goddess Artemis leaves the goddess of love to take matters into her own hands and punish him for his disrespect towards her by putting his mother Phaedra under a spell that will make her lust for her own son, "I am ashamed of what I said. Cover me up. The tears are flowing, and my face is turned to shame. Having my mind straight is bitterness to my heart; yet madness is terrible. It is better then that I should died and know no more of anything." (246-249) (4). Hippolytus' impious actions that stem from not respecting or worshipping Aphrodite lead to the harsh consequence of punishing Phaedra, driving her into a lustful state of madness until she made the

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