Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Bust of Aeschylus
from the Capitoline Museums, Rome
Native name
c. 523 BC
Born
Eleusis
c. 456 BC
Died
Gela
Ethnicity
Greek
Occupation
Playwright and soldier
Euphorion
Euaeon
Children
Parent(s)
Relatives
Euphorion (father)
Cynaegirus (brother)
Ameinias (brother)
Philopatho (sister)
Philocles (nephew)
Contents
1 Life
2 Personal life
3 Works
o 3.1 Trilogies
4 Surviving plays
o 4.1 The Persians
4.4.1 Agamemnon
5 Lost plays
o 5.1 Myrmidons
o 5.2 Nereids
o 5.3 Phrygians, or Hector's Ransom
o 5.4 Niobe
6 Influence
o 6.1 Influence on Greek drama and culture
o 6.2 Influence outside of Greek culture
7 See also
8 Notes
9 Citations
10 Editions
11 References
12 External links
Life
In 480, Aeschylus was called into military service again, this time against Xerxes I's invading
forces at the Battle of Salamis, and perhaps, too, at the Battle of Plataea in 479.[9] Ion of Chios
was a witness for Aeschylus's war record and his contribution in Salamis.[13] Salamis holds a
prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and
won first prize at the Dionysia.[14]
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who had been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, a cult
to Demeter based in his hometown of Eleusis.[15] As the name implies, members of the cult were
supposed to have gained some secret knowledge. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as
members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to
non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle some thought that Aeschylus had revealed
some of the cult's secrets on stage.[16]
Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot, but he fled the scene.
Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. He then took refuge at
the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. At his trial, he pleaded ignorance. He was
acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the wounds that Aeschylus and Cynegeirus had suffered at
Marathon. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus's younger brother
Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand that he lost at
Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis
went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene.[13]
Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I of
Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island; and during one of these trips he
produced The Women of Aetna (in honor of the city founded by Hieron) and restaged his
Persians.[9] By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the
yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition.[9] In 472 BC,
Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.[13]
In 458 BC, he returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela where he died in 456
or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by
an eagle which had mistook his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the reptile.[17]
Pliny, in his Naturalis Histori, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a
prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object.[17] Aeschylus's work was so respected by the
Athenians that after his death, his were the only tragedies allowed to be restaged in subsequent
competitions.[9] His sons Euphorion and Euon and his nephew Philocles also became
playwrights.[9]
The inscription on Aeschylus's gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown,
commemorating only his military achievements:
of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can
' speak,
and the long-haired Persian knows it well.
[18]
The inscription on his graveyard signifies according to Castoriadis the primary importance of
"belonging to the City", of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of soldiers citizens.
Personal life
Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets.
Euphorion won first prize in 431 in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides.[19] His
nephew, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition
against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.[13][20]
A scholiast has noted that Philocles' Tereus was part of his Pandionis tetralogy.[21] Aeschylus had
at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias.
Works
Modern picture of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, where many of Aeschylus's plays were
performed
The roots of Greek drama are in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of
wine.[12] During Aeschylus's lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia in
the spring.[12] The festival opened with a procession, followed with a competition of boys singing
dithyrambs and culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions.[22] The first competition Aeschylus
would have participated in, consisted of three playwrights each presenting three tragic plays
followed by a shorter comedic satyr play.[22] A second competition of five comedic playwrights
followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.[22]
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions in his lifetime, and various ancient sources
attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him.[2][23] Only seven tragedies have survived intact:
The Persians, Seven against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia,
consisting of the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides, together
with Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play the
success of which is uncertain all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first
prize at the City Dionysia.
The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen
times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially
larger catalogue, at an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is
thought to have written roughly 90 plays.
Trilogies
One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected
trilogies, in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative.[24] The
Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that
Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The comic satyr plays that follow his trilogies also drew
upon stories derived from myths.
For example, the Oresteia's satyr play Proteus treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on
his way home from the Trojan War. Based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of
Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, it is assumed that
three other of his extant plays were components of connected trilogies: Seven against Thebes
being the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound each being
the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively (see below). Scholars have
moreover suggested several completely lost trilogies derived from known play titles. A number
of these trilogies treated myths surrounding the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis,
comprised the titles Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector).
Another trilogy apparently recounts the entry of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his
death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the
trilogy); The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a
trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax; Aeschylus also seems
to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife
Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope and
The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts
(Arg, Lemnian Women, Hypsipyl); the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydekts,
Phorkides); the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus); and the aftermath of
the war portrayed in Seven against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the
Seven).[25]
Surviving plays
The Persians
The Suppliants
Main article: The Suppliants (Aeschylus)
Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants in 463 BC (Hiketides), which
pays tribute to the democratic undercurrents running through Athens in advance of the
establishment of a democratic government in 461. In the play, the Danaids, the fifty daughters of
Danaus, founder of Argos, flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King
Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the
decision, a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king. The people decide that the
Danaids deserve protection, and they are allowed within the walls of Argos despite Egyptian
protests.[31]
The 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3 confirmed a long-assumed (because of
The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending) Danaid trilogy, whose constituent plays are generally agreed
to be The Suppliants, The Egyptians and The Danaids. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's
last two-thirds runs thus:[32] In The Egyptians, the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first
play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus
rules Argos. He negotiates a peace settlement with Aegyptus, as a condition of which, his fifty
daughters will marry the fifty sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an
oracle predicting that one of his sons-in-law would kill him; he therefore orders the Danaids to
murder their husbands on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open the
day after the wedding.[33]
In short order, it is revealed that forty-nine of the Danaids killed their husbands as ordered;
Hypermnestra, however, loved her husband Lynceus, and thus spared his life and helped him to
escape. Angered by his daughter's disobedience, Danaus orders her imprisonment and, possibly,
her execution. In the trilogy's climax and dnouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus, and
kills him (thus fulfilling the oracle). He and Hypermnestra will establish a ruling dynasty in
Argos. The other forty-nine Danaids are absolved of their murderous crime, and married off to
unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone, after one of
the Danaids.[33]
The Oresteia
Main article: The Oresteia
The only complete (save a few missing lines in several spots) trilogy of Greek plays by any
playwright still extant is the Oresteia (458 BC); although the satyr play that originally followed
it, Proteus, is lost except for some fragments.[26] The trilogy consists of Agamemnon, The
Libation Bearers (Choephoroi), and The Eumenides.[28] Together, these plays tell the bloody story
of the family of Agamemnon, King of Argos.
Agamemnon
Aeschylus begins in Greece describing the return of king Agamemnon from his victory in the
Trojan War, from the perspective of the towns people (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra.
However, dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was
angry at his sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia, killed so the Gods would stop a storm hindering
the Greek fleet in the war. She was also unhappy at his keeping of the Trojan prophetess
Cassandra as a concubine. Cassandra foretells of the murder of Agamemnon, and of herself, to
the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot
avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of
Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father.[28]
The Libation Bearers
The Libation Bearers continues the tale, opening with Orestes's arrival at Agamemnon's tomb. At
the tomb, Electra meets Orestes, who has returned from exile in Phocis, and they plan revenge
upon Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she
gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus; and this leads her to order Electra, her daughter,
to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of
making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death, and when
Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to share in the news, Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then
beset by the Furies, who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology.[28]
The Eumenides
The final play of The Oresteia addresses the question of Orestes' guilt.[28] The Furies drive
Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs
him to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, and so bears
some of the guilt for the murder. The Furies are a more ancient race of the gods, and Apollo
sends Orestes to the temple of Athena, with Hermes as a guide.[31]
The Furies track him down, and the goddess Athena, patron of Athens, steps in and declares that
a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case and, after the judges, including Athena deliver a
tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The
Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws,
and, as in The Suppliants, the ideals of a democratic Athens are praised.[31]
Prometheus Bound
Main article: Prometheus Bound
In addition to these six works, a seventh tragedy, Prometheus Bound, is attributed to Aeschylus
by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted
this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories
ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s.[9][34]
The play consists mostly of static dialogue, as throughout the play the Titan Prometheus is bound
to a rock as punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god
Hephaestus, the Titan Oceanus, and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus'
plight. Prometheus meets Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty; and prophesies her future travels,
revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending
Prometheus into the abyss because Prometheus refuses to divulge the secret of a potential
marriage that could prove Zeus' downfall.[27]
The Prometheus Bound appears to have been the first play in a trilogy called the Prometheia. In
the second play, Prometheus Unbound, Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the
eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver. Perhaps
foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus, we learn that Zeus has released the
other Titans whom he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy.[35]
In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, it appears that the Titan finally warns
Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis, for she is fated to give birth to a son greater than the
father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to the mortal Peleus; the product of
that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus
probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.[35]
Lost plays
Only the titles and assorted fragments of Aeschylus's other plays have come down to us. We have
enough fragments of some plays (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to
produce rough synopses of their plots.
Myrmidons
This play was based on books 9 and 16 in Homer's Iliad. Achilles sits in silent indignation over
his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt
to reconcile him to Agamemnon, but he yields only to his friend and lover Patroclus, who then
battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a
messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning.[13]
Nereids
This play was based on books 18, 19, and 22 of the Iliad, follows the Daughters of Nereus, the
sea god, lament Patroclus' death. In this play a messenger tells how Achilles, perhaps reconciled
to Agamemnon and the Greeks, slew Hector.[13]
Niobe
The children of Niobe, the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had
gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto. Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage
during most of the play. In the Republic, Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when
he wills to destroy a house utterly." [13]
These are the remaining plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known to us:
Alcmene
The Cretan
Memnon
The Priestesses
Women
Amymone
The ArcherWomen
The Argivian
Women
The Argo, or
The Rowers
Atalanta
Athamas
Attendants of
the Bridal
Chamber
Award of the
Arms
The Bacchae
The Bassarae
The BoneGatherers
The Cabeiroi
Callisto
The Carians,
or Europa
Children of
Hercules
Cycnus
The Danaids
Daughters of
Helios
Daughters of
Phorcys
The
Descendants
(of the Seven)
The Edonians
The Egyptians
The Escorts
Glaucus of
Pontus
Glaucus of
Potniae
Hypsipyle
Iphigenia
Ixion
Laius
The Lemnian
Women
The Lion
Lycurgus
Cercyon
The Men of
Eleusis
The Messengers
The Myrmidons
The Mysians
Nemea
The NetDraggers
The Nurses of
Dionysus'
Prometheus the
Fire-Bearer
Prometheus the
Fire-Kindler
Prometheus
Unbound
Proteus
Semele, or The
Water-Bearers
Sisyphus the
Runaway
Sisyphus the
Stone-Roller
The Spectators,
or Athletes of the
Isthmian Games
Orethyia
Palamedes
Penelope
Pentheus
Perrhaibides
The Sphinx
Philoctetes
Phineus
The SpiritRaisers
The Phrygian
Women
Telephus
The Thracian
Women
Weighing of
Souls
Women of Aetna
(two versions)
Women of
Polydectes
Salamis
Circe
Xantriae
The Youths
Influence
Influence on Greek drama and culture
Mosaic of Orestes, main character in Aeschylus's only surviving trilogy, The Oresteia
When Aeschylus first began writing, the theatre had only just begun to evolve, although earlier
playwrights like Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to
interact with the chorus.[23] Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety,
while the chorus played a less important role.[23] He is sometimes credited with introducing
skenographia, or scene-decoration,[36] though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles.
Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and having his
actors wear platform boots (cothurni) to make them more visible to the audience. According to a
later account of Aeschylus's life, as they walked on stage in the first performance of the
Eumenides, the chorus of Furies were so frightening in appearance that they caused young
children to faint, patriarchs to urinate, and pregnant women to go into labour.[37]
His plays were written in verse, no violence is performed on stage, and the plays have a
remoteness from daily life in Athens, either by relating stories about the gods or by being set,
like The Persians, in far-away locales.[38] Aeschylus's work has a strong moral and religious
emphasis.[38] The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on man's position in the cosmos in relation to the
gods, divine law, and divine punishment.[39]
Aeschylus's popularity is evident in the praise the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in
The Frogs, produced some half-century after Aeschylus's death. Appearing as a character in the
play, Aeschylus claims at line 1022 that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to
love being warlike"; with his Persians, Aeschylus claims at lines 10267 that he "taught the
Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say at lines 1039ff.
that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous.
See also
Notes
1.
1. The remnant of a commemorative inscription, dated to the 3rd century BC, lists four,
possibly eight, dramatic poets (probably including Choerilus, Phrynichus, and Pratinas)
who had won tragic victories at the Dionysia before Aeschylus had. Thespis was
traditionally regarded the inventor of tragedy. According to another tradition, tragedy was
established in Athens in the late 530s BC, but that may simply reflect an absence of
records. Major innovations in dramatic form, credited to Aeschylus by Aristotle and the
anonymous source The Life of Aeschylus, may be exaggerations and should be viewed
with caution (Martin Cropp (2006), "Lost Tragedies: A Survey" in A Companion to Greek
Tragedy, pp. 2724)
Citations
1.
Jones, Daniel; Roach, Peter, James Hartman and Jane Setter, eds. Cambridge English
Pronouncing Dictionary. 17th edition. Cambridge UP, 2006.
Freeman 1999, p. 243
Schlegel, August Wilhelm von. Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. p. 121.
R. Lattimore, Aeschylus I: Oresteia, 4
Martin Cropp, 'Lost Tragedies: A Survey'; A Companion to Greek Tragedy, page 273
P. Levi, Greek Drama, 159
S. Sad, Aeschylean Tragedy, 215
S. Sad, Aeschylean Tragedy, 221
Sommerstein 1996, p. 33[citation not found]
Bates 1906, pp. 5359
S. Sad, Eschylean tragedy, 217
Freeman 1999, p. 241
Kopff 1997 pp.1-472
Sommerstein 1996, p. 34
Martin 2000, 10.1
Nicomachean Ethics 1111a8-10.
J. C. McKeown (2013), A Cabinet of Greek Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising
Facts from the Cradle of Western Civilization, Oxford University Press, p. 136,
ISBN 9780199982103, The unusual nature of Aeschylus's death...
Anthologiae Graecae Appendix, vol. 3, Epigramma sepulcrale. p. 17.
Osborn, K. & Burges, D. (1998). The complete idiot's guide to classical mythology.
Penguin. ISBN 978-0-02-862385-6.
Smith 2005, p. 1
March, J. (2000). "Vases and Tragic Drama". In Rutter, N.K. & Sparkes, B.A. Word and
Image in Ancient Greece. University of Edinburgh. pp. 121123. ISBN 978-0-7486-1405-9.
Freeman 1999, p. 242
Pomeroy 1999, p. 222
Sommerstein 1996
Sommerstein 2002, 34.
Freeman 1999, p. 244
Vellacott: 719
Freeman 1999, pp. 244246
Aeschylus. "Prometheus Bound, The Suppliants, Seven Against Thebes, The Persians."
Philip Vellacott's Introduction, pp.7-19. Penguin Classics.
Sommerstein 2002, 23.
Freeman 1999, p. 246
See (e.g.) Sommerstein 1996, 141-51; Turner 2001, 36-39.
Sommerstein 2002, 89.
Griffith 1983, pp. 3234
For a discussion of the trilogy's reconstruction, see (e.g.) Conacher 1980, 100-2.
According to Vitruvius. See Summers 2007, 23.
Life of Aeschylus.
Pomeroy 1999, p. 223
Pomeroy 1999, pp. 224225
Furness, Raymond (January 1984). "The Modern Language Review" 79 (1). pp. 239240.
JSTOR 3730399.
Sheppard, J. T. (1927). "Aeschylus and Sophocles: their Work and Influence". Journal of
Hellenic Studies (The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies) 47 (2): 265.
doi:10.2307/625177. JSTOR 625177.
Virginia - Arlington National Cemetery: Robert F. Kennedy Gravesite
1.
Editions
Martin L. West, Aeschyli Tragoediae: cum incerti poetae Prometheo 2 ed. (1998). The
first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779, using blank
verse for the iambic trimeters and rhymed verse for the choruses, a convention adopted
by most translators for the next century.
Stefan Radt (Hg.), Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Vol. III: Aeschylus (Gttingen,
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009) (Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, 3).
Alan H. Sommerstein (ed.), Aeschylus, Volume II, Oresteia: Agamemnon. Libationbearers. Eumenides. 146 (Cambridge, Mass./London: Loeb Classical Library, 2009);
Volume III, Fragments. 505 (Cambridge, Mass./London: Loeb Classical Library, 2008).
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