Happy Birthday, Euripides

This is the day we celebrate the birth of one of ancient Greece's greatest dramatists, Euripides. He reshaped Attic drama by featuring petty and uncaring gods, flawed but human heroes, strong women, and smart slaves.

Of his more than 90 plays, 19 survive (more than Aeschylus and Sophocles together), among them Alcestis, The Bacchae, Elektra, Iphigenia At Aulis, Iphegenia in Tauris, Medea, and The Trojan Women.

Today's Writer's Almanac has this quote: "When good men die their goodness does not perish, / But lives though they are gone. As for the bad, / All that was theirs dies and is buried with them." This is so clearly the source of Marc Antony's "The evil that men do lives after them / The good is oft interred with their bones / So let it be with Caesar" that is startles me.