Hippolytus | Study Guide

About the Title

In Greek mythology Hippolytus is a minor deity associated with Aphrodite, the goddess of love, and girls would cut a lock of hair as an offering to Hippolytus before marriage. The name Hippolytus alludes to horses because hippo means horse in Greek. In Euripides's play, he chose to cast Hippolytus as the son of the great hero Theseus and Hippolyte, queen of the Amazons, for his cautionary tragedy. The play turns on the situational irony of a mortal version of Hippolytus, who devotes himself to the goddess of chastity (Artemis) and shuns Aphrodite, thereby causing the ruin of mortal characters at the hands of gods through the "uncontrollable horses" of lust, arrogance, and revenge.