AESCHYLUS

'Aeschylus' (Greek: 'Ασχύλος', IPA: or , 525 BC/524 BC – 456 BC) was an ancient Greek playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy,^[1][2] and is the earliest of the three Greek tragedians whose plays survive, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. He expanded the number of characters in plays to allow for conflict between them; previously, characters interacted only with the chorus. Unfortunately, only seven of the estimated seventy plays written by Aeschylus have survived into modern times.
Many of Aeschylus' works were influenced by the Persian invasion of Greece, which took place during his lifetime. His play ''The Persians'' remains an important primary source of information about this period in Greek history. The war was so important to Greeks and to Aeschylus himself that, upon his death around 456 BC, his epitaph included a reference to his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon but not to his success as a playwright.

Contents

Life

Works

''The Persians''

''Seven against Thebes''

''The Suppliants''

''The Oresteia''

''Agamemnon''

''The Libation Bearers''

''The Eumenides''

''Prometheus Bound''

Influence on Greek drama and culture

See also

Footnotes

References

External links

Life

Aeschylus was born in either 525 or 524 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 30 kilometers northwest of Athens, which is nestled in the fertile valleys of western Attica.^[3] His family was both wealthy and well-established; his father Euphorion was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica.^[4] As a youth, he worked at a vineyard until, he later claimed to his friend Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke from the dream, the young Aeschylus began writing a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was only 26 years old. After fifteen years, his skill was great enough to win a prize for his plays at Athens' annual city Dionysia playwriting competition.^[5] But in the interim, his dramatic career was interrupted by war. The armies of the Persian Empire, who had already conquered the Greek city-states of Ionia, entered mainland Greece in the hopes of conquering it as well.
In 490 BC, Aeschylus and his brother Cynegeirus fought with the Greek army against the invading Persian army at the Battle of Marathon. The Greeks, though outnumbered, encircled and slaughtered the Persian army. This pivotal defeat by the soldiers of the Greek Delian League ended the first Persian invasion of Greece proper and was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. However, the victory was bittersweet for Aeschylus because his brother was killed in the battle. Aeschylus continued to write plays during the lull between the first and second Persian invasions of Greece, and won his first victory in the city Dionysia, Athens' annual competition of playwrights, in 484 BC. It is widely asserted that in 480 he again fought with the Greek armies against Xerxes' invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. There is little evidence to support this inference, however, beyond the prominence of the battle in ''The Persians'', his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.^[6] It is perhaps worth noting that the Parian Marble and Aeschylus' own epitaph, for example, place him at the Battle of Marathon, but make no mention of Salamis or any other military action.
Aeschylus traveled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hieron, tyrant of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. 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. In 458 BC, he returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela where he died in 456 or 455 BC. As legend has it, an eagle, mistaking the playwright's bald crown for a stone, dropped a tortoise on his head (though some accounts differ, claiming it was a stone dropped by an eagle or vulture that likely mistook his bald head for the egg of a flightless bird). He would continue to be honored by the Athenians, who respected his work so highly that they allowed other playwrights to reproduce his plays as part of the Dionysia rather than presenting original works of their own. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles would follow in his footsteps and become playwrights themselves.
The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone may have been written by him, but makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements:

Greek	English
::::[7]	:This tomb the dust of Aeschylus doth hide,:Euphorion's son and fruitful Gela's pride:How tried his valor, Marathon may tell:And long-haired Medes, who knew it all too well.

Works

Modern picture of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, where many of Aeschylus' plays were performed

The Greek art of the drama had its roots in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia in the spring. The festival began with an opening procession, continued with a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions.^[8] The first competition, which Aeschylus would have participated in, was for the tragedians, and consisted of three playwrights each presenting three tragic plays followed by a shorter comedic satyr play. A second competition of five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions in his lifetime, and it is estimated that he wrote somewhere between 70 to 90 plays.^[9] 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'', and ''Prometheus Bound'' (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play -- whose success is uncertain -- all of Aeschylus' extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia. The Alexandrian ''Life of Aeschylus'' indicates that the playwright took the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue of an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides (with a catalogue of roughly 90 plays).
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. ''The Oresteia'' is the only wholly extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is ample evidence that Aeschylus wrote such trilogies often. In such connected trilogies, the comic satyr play that followed seems to have treated a related mythic topic. For example, the ''Oresteia's satyr play ''Proteus'' treated the story of Menelaus's 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 Aeschylus' 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'' and comprising the titles ''Myrmidons'', ''Nereids'' and ''Phrygians'' (alternately, ''The Ransoming of Hector'') -- recounts Achilles' avenging Patroclus' death at the hands of the Trojan Hector and his subsequent holding of Hector's body for ransom; 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 treated Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) with a trilogy consisting of ''The Soul-raisers'', ''Penelope'' and ''The Bone-gatherers''. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myths of Jason and the Argonauts, the birth and exploits of Dionysus, and the aftermath (immediate and long-term) of the war portrayed in ''Seven against Thebes''.

''The Persians''

The earliest of the plays that still exist is ''The Persians'' (''Persai''), performed in 472 BC and based on experiences in Aeschylus' own life, specifically the Battle of Salamis.^[10] It is unique both in its aforementioned importance for historians of the Persian Wars and because the majority of Greek plays of that era concerned stories about the gods rather than stories about humans. ''The Persians'' focuses on the popular Greek theme of ''hubris'' by blaming Persia's loss on the overwhelming pride of its king. It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa, the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis to Atossa, the mother of the Persian King Xerxes. Atossa then travels to the tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont, an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus.^[11]

''Seven against Thebes''

''Seven against Thebes'' (''Hepta epi Thebas''), which was performed in 467 BC, picks up a contrasting theme, that of fate and the interference of the gods in human affairs. It also marks the first known appearance in Aeschylus' work of a theme which would continue through his plays, that of the polis (the city) being a vital development of human civilization.^[12] The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of the shamed King of Thebes, Oedipus. The sons agree to alternate in the throne of the city, but after the first year Eteocles refuses to step down, and Polynices wages war to claim his crown. The brothers go on to kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. An alternate ending added 50 years later, after the success of Sophocles' play ''Antigone'', tells of the fate of Antigone, sister to Eteocles and Polynices. She defies the order of the new king, Creon, banning anyone from burying Polynices. In response, Creon sentences her to be buried alive, and Antigone commits suicide just before Creon is persuaded to rescind his order. The remainder of the play is an orgy of deaths. Creon is killed by his son, Haemon, who was betrothed to Antigone and who immediately afterwards kills himself. Then Eurydice, Creon's wife, kills herself in mourning. This ending entirely mirrors the plot of ''Antigone''. This play was the third in a connected Oedpius trilogy; the first two plays were ''Laius'' and ''Oedipus'', likely treating those elements of the Oedipus myth detailed most famously in Sophocles' ''Oedipus the King''. The concluding satyr play was ''The Sphinx''.

''The Suppliants''

Aeschylus would continue 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 decidedly 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.^[13] 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 Aegyptids'' and ''The Danaids''. A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In ''The Aegyptids'', the Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. During the course of the war, King Pelasgus has been killed, and Danaus comes to rule 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 the Aegyptids on their wedding night. His daughters agree. ''The Danaids'' would open the day after the wedding. 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 denouement, 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.

''The Oresteia''

The most complete tetralogy of Aeschylus' work that still exists is the ''Oresteia'' (458 BC), of which only the satyr play is missing. In fact, the ''Oresteia'' is the only full trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright that modern scholars have uncovered. The trilogy consists of ''Agamemnon'', ''The Libation Bearers'' (''Choephoroi''), and ''The Eumenides''. Together, these plays tell the bloody story of the family of Agamemnon, King of Mycenae.

''Agamemnon''

''Agamemnon'' describes his death at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, who was angry both at Agamemnon's sacrifice of their daughter Iphigenia and at his keeping the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as a concubine. Cassandra enters the palace even though she knows she will be murdered by Clytemnestra as well, knowing that she cannot avoid her gruesome fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes, son of Agamemnon, who will surely avenge his father.''

''The Libation Bearers''

''The Libation Bearers'' continues the tale, opening with Clytemnestra's account of a nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake. She orders Electra, her daughter, to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. At the tomb, Electra meets Orestes, who has returned from protective exile in Phocis, and they plan revenge upon Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus together. They enter the palace pretending to bear news of Orestes' death, and when Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to share in the news, Orestes kills them both. Immediately, Orestes is beset by the Furies, who avenge patricide and matricide in Greek mythology.

''The Eumenides''

The final play of the trilogy, ''The Eumenides'', addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies pursue Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. Orestes 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 a portion of the guilt of the act. But the Furies belong to the older race of the Titans, and Apollo is unable to drive them away. He sends Orestes to the temple of Athena, with Hermes as a guide. There, the furies track him down and, just before he is to be killed, the goddess Athena, patron of Athens, steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case and, after the jury splits their vote, Athena decides against the Furies. She also renames them the Eumenides, or kindly ones, and declares that thereafter all future hung juries should result in acquittal, since mercy should take precedence over harshness. ''The Eumenides'' specifically extols the importance of reason in the development of laws, and, like ''The Suppliants'', lauds the ideals of a democratic Athens.

''Prometheus Bound''

In addition to these six works, a seventh tragedy, ''Prometheus Bound'', is uniformly attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late nineteenth century, however, modern scholarship has increasingly doubted this ascription largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from 457 BC to as late as the 410's.^[14] The play consists mostly of static dialogue, as throughout the play Prometheus is bound to a rock as punishment for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus, the Titan Oceanus, and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for the Titan's plight. Prometheus meets Io, a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty; he prophesies for her future travels, and reveals that one of her descendents will eventually free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into the abyss because the Titan refuses to divulge the secret of a potential marriage that could be the Olympian's downfall. 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 the Titan's 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. In the trilogy's conclusion, ''Prometheus the Fire-Bringer'', the Titan finally warns Zeus not to lie 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 will be Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus perhaps inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens.

Influence on Greek drama and culture

Mosaic of Orestes, main character in Aeschylus' only surviving trilogy, ''The Oresteia''

When Aeschylus first began writing, the theatre had only just begun to evolve, although earlier playwrights like Thespis had expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with the chorus.^[15] Aeschylus added a 2^nd actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing ''skenographia'', or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Overall, though, he continued to write within the very strict bounds of Greek drama: his plays were written in verse, no violence could be performed on stage, and the plays had to have a certain remoteness from daily life in Athens, either by relating stories about the gods or by being set, like ''The Persians'', in far-away locales.^[16]
Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis. The ''Oresteia'' trilogy particularly concentrated on man's position in the cosmos in relation to the gods, divine law, and divine punishment.^[17] He was the first tragic playwright whose works were allowed to be reproduced after his death. Aeschylus' abiding popularity is most evident in the praise the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in ''The Frogs'', produced in 405 BC, some half-century after Aeschylus' death.

See also

★ Asteroid 2876 Aeschylus, which is named for him

Footnotes

1. Freeman: 243
2. P.W. Buckham: 121, quoting from ''Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature'' by August Wilhelm von Schlegel. "''Aeschylus is to be considered as the creator of Tragedy: in full panoply she sprung from his head, like Pallas from the head of Jupiter. He clad her with dignity, and gave her an appropriate stage; he was the inventor of scenic pomp, and not only instructed the chorus in singing and dancing, but appeared himself as an actor. He was the first that expanded the dialogue, and set limits to the lyrical part of tragedy, which, however, still occupies too much space in his pieces.''"
3. Sommerstein: 33
4. Bates: 53-59
5. Freeman: 241
6. Sommerstein: 34
7. text from the ''Anthologiae Graecae Appendix'', vol. 3, ''Epigramma sepulcrale'', Page 17
8. Freeman: 242
9. There is disagreement among scholars concerning the total number of plays. For example, Freeman (243) claims around 90 while Pomeroy et al. (222) claim 'perhaps seventy plays'.
10. Freeman: 244
11. Vellacott: 7-19
12. Freeman: 244-246
13. Freeman: 246
14. According to Griffith (32), "Most modern scholars have seen no good reason to doubt the traditional ascription, though opinions as to date have varied." He adds that "we cannot hope for certainty one way or the other" (34).
15. Pomeroy: 222
16. Pomeroy: 223
17. Pomeroy: 224-225

References

★ Bates, Alfred, ed. (1906). ''The Drama: Its History, Literature, and Influence on Civilization, Vol. 1''. London: Historical Publishing Company.

★ Buckham, P.W. (1827). ''The Theater of the Greeks, or the History, Literature, and Criticism of Grecian Drama''. Cambridge: W.P. Grant.

★ Freeman, Charles (1999). ''The Greek Achievement: The Foundation of the Western World''. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0670885150

★ Griffith, Mark ed. (1983). ''Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound''. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521270111

★ Pomeroy, Sarah B., ET. AL. (1999). ''Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History''. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195097432

★ Sommerstein, Alan H. (2002). ''Greek Drama and Dramatists''. London: Routledge Press. ISBN 0415260272

★ Thomson, George (1973) Aeschylus and Athens: A Study in the Social Origin of Drama. London: Lawrence and Wishart (4th edition)

★ Vellacott, Philip, (1961). ''Prometheus Bound and Other Plays: Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Persians''. New York:Penguin Classics. ISBN 0140441123

External links

★ Wikipedia- Theatre of ancient Greece

★ Selected Poems of Aeschylus

★

★ Photo of a fragment of ''The Net-pullers''

★ ''Prometheus Bound''

★ Aeschylus (4)