Rediscovering Tauris
Journal: Oxford University Press eBooks
Year: 2012

An overview of the geographical, historical and archaeological aspects of Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris shows how the setting of the play, on the Crimean coast of the Ukraine in the Northern Black Sea, combined with the archetypal ‘quest’ motif in the story of the Greeks' theft of the ancient statue of Artemis, has brought the play into cultural prominence whenever the Crimea itself has been in the news: during the Crimean war (1853-6) and especially during the period before and after the Russi