Abstract: In his best-known tragedy, Medea, Euripides questions the notion of traditional heroism from a unique feminine perspective. Medea is presented as the staunchest defender of the principle of traditional hero, but paradoxically she completely rejects the notion of heroism that became commonly acknowledged after Homer. Through a survey of the “enlightened self-interest,” effected by the integration of the sophistic rhetoric with the Athenian democracy, Euripides criticizes the disastrous consequences brought by the Enlightenment of the sophists. The Athenian democracy encourages people to pursue freedom and eros, thereby providing the fertile soil and legitimacy for individualism and the liberation of eros. In the end, the value relativism brought by sophists' rhetoric inevitably shifts from self-concerned individualism to moral nihilism. The paradox, which is implicit in the Athenian democracy, is vividly shown in the image of “Helios' Chariot”: the individual who commits a crime while boldly pursuing eros may still evade a punishment under a sacred excuse. As it were, individualism and moral nihilism may very well be perceived as the two “flowers of evil” in the wake of embracing, recklessly, eros in the Athenian democracy.

Key words: Euripides, Medea, rhetoric, ethics, moral nihilism