Athamas Kills the Son of Ino” by Gaetano Gandolfi (detail)

The discovery of a fragmentary papyrus containing substantial sections (ninety-seven lines of Greek) of two plays of Euripides has caused a splash in the world of Classics. Not well known before, the texts come from Euripides’ Ino, a tale of jealousy, revenge, murder and suicide, and Polyidus, a play of miraculous resurrection and celebration.

This is the most significant discovery of “new” tragedy in nearly sixty years. The papyrus was excavated by a team from the Egyptian ministry of antiquities at the ancient necropolis of Philadelphia, south of Cairo, on November 19, 2022, and it has just been published (in late August 2024) and classified as P. Phil. Nec. 23.

Professor Bill Allan, McConnell Laing Tutorial Fellow in Greek and Latin Languages and Literature, has written about the new texts in the Times Literary Supplement (6 September 2024).

Published: 11 September 2024

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