The book offers an interpretation of Euripides' The Trojan Women which issues from the argument that the function of Greek tragedy was to educate. The author demonstrates that the play performs its function by examining Athenian ideology. By making the didactic function of tragedy the basis of interpretation, he is able to offer a coherent view of a number of long-standing problems in Euripidean criticism, for instance, the relation of Euripides to the Sophists.