Aeschylus (Greek: Αἰσχύλος, IPA: /ˈɛskələs/ or /ˈiskələs/, 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 a quintessential
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.
Life
Aeschylus was born in either 524 or 523 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 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.[4] 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.[4][3] After fifteen
years, his skill was great enough to win a prize for his plays at Athens' annual city Dionysia
playwriting competition.[4][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.[3] 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.[3] However, the victory was bittersweet for Aeschylus because his brother was killed in the
battle.[3] 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.[3] It is
widely asserted that in 480 he again fought with the Greek armies against Xerxes'
invading forces at the Battle of Salamis.[3] 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 major 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.[3] 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.[3] 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 mistook his bald head for the egg of a flightless bird).[3] This incident may not be as unlikely as it seems, as the
Lammergeier is native to the Mediterranean region – a large eagle-like vulture known to drop
bones and tortoises on rocks to break them open. Aechylus 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.[3] His sons Euphorion and Euæon
and his nephew Philocles would follow in his footsteps and become playwrights themselves.[3]
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 |
- Αἰσχύλον Εὐφορίωνος Ἀθηναῖον τόδε κεύθει
- μνῆμα καταφθίμενον πυροφόροιο Γέλας·
- ἀλκὴν δ’ εὐδόκιμον Μαραθώνιον ἄλσος ἂν εἴποι
- καὶ βαρυχαιτήεις Μῆδος ἐπιστάμενος[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.[5]
During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia in the
spring.[5] 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.[8] A second competition of five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of
both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.[8]
Aeschylus entered many of these competitions in his lifetime, and it is estimated that he wrote some 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.[10]
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.[11] 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.[1] The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris by blaming Persia's loss on the overwhelming pride of its king.[11] 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.[12]
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.[11] 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.[13] 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.[12] 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.[12] 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.[14] 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.[11] In fact, the Oresteia is the only full trilogy of Greek plays by any
playwright that modern scholars have uncovered.[11]
The trilogy consists of Agamemnon, The Libation
Bearers (Choephoroi), and The Eumenides.[13] 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.[13]
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.[13]
The Eumenides
The final play of the trilogy, The Eumenides, addresses the question of Orestes' guilt.[13] 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.[14]
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.[3][15] 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.[12] 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
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.[16]
Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played less important role.[16] 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.[17]
Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis.[17] The Oresteia trilogy particularly concentrated on man's position in the cosmos in relation
to the gods, divine law, and divine punishment.[18] 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
Footnotes
- ^ a b Freeman: 243
- ^ 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."
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Sommerstein: 33
- ^ a b c d Bates: 53-59
- ^ a b c Freeman: 241
- ^ Sommerstein: 34
- ^ text from the Anthologiae Graecae Appendix, vol. 3, Epigramma
sepulcrale, Page 17
- ^ a b c Freeman: 242
- ^ 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'.
- ^ For a good summary of Aeschylean trilogies, see Sommerstein 1996, a
comprehensive study of the poet.
- ^ a b c d e Freeman: 244
- ^ a b c d Vellacott: 7-19
- ^ a b c d e Freeman:
244-246
- ^ a b Freeman: 246
- ^ 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).
- ^ a b Pomeroy: 222
- ^ a b Pomeroy: 223
- ^ 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. (1996). Aeschylean Tragedy. Bari.
- -- (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
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| Persondata |
| NAME |
Aeschylus |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES |
|
| SHORT DESCRIPTION |
Major ancient Greek playwright, one of only three whose works have survived into modern times. |
| DATE OF BIRTH |
c. 525 BC |
| PLACE OF BIRTH |
Eleusis |
| DATE OF DEATH |
c. 456 BC |
| PLACE OF DEATH |
Sicily |
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