Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, along with Aeschylus and Sophocles. He is known for his innovative and psychologically complex plays that often questioned traditional values and religious beliefs. Of the more than ninety plays he is believed to have written, only eighteen or nineteen have survived in a complete form. His work profoundly influenced later Western drama and his surviving plays, including Medea and The Bacchae, are still widely performed and studied today.