Aeschylus

Aeschylus
Occupation(s)	Playwright and Soldier

This article is about the ancient Greek playwright. For other uses, see Aeschylus (disambiguation).

Aeschylus (Greek: Αἰσχύλος, IPA: /ˈɛskələs/ or /ˈiskələs/, 525 BC — 456 BCE) was an ancient Greek playwright. He is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, being the earliest of the three Greek tragedians whose plays survive, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. His contributions to the art of drama include expanding the number of characters in plays from one to two, which allowed real conflict and interaction between characters rather than limiting plays to dialogue between one character and the chorus. Unfortunately, only six of an estimated 70 plays by Aeschylus have survived into modern times.

Aeschylus' life and career took place in the context of the Persian invasion of Greece, which influenced the subject matter of many of his works. 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 reference to his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon but not to his success as a playwright.

Life

The Persian King Darius, whose army Aeschylus fought in the Battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea

Aeschylus was born in either 525 or 524 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 30 kilometers northwest of Athens nestled in the fertile valleys of western Attica. His family was both wealthy and well-established, his father Euphorion being a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. 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. The young Aeschylus began writing a tragedy as soon as he woke, and his first performance took place in 499 BC when he was only 26 years old. He would wait another fifteen years until his skill had developed to the point where he would win a prize for his plays at Athens' annual City Dionysia, a festival dedicated to Dionysus.

In 490 BC, Aeschylus and his brother Cynegeirus fought with the Greek army against the massive invading army of the Persian Empire at the Battle of Marathon. This pivotal defeat of the Persian King Darius' invading horde by the outnumbered 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 glory was tempered for Aeschylus personally when 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. In 480 and 479 BC, he again fought with the Greek armies against Xerxes' invading forces at the Battles of Salamis and Plataea. The crushing Athenian victory over the Persian fleet at Salamis was to become the subject of The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize.

Aeschylus traveled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hieron of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. By 473, 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. 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 to 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
Αἰσχύλον Εὐφορίωνος Ἀθηναῖον τόδε κεύθει μνῆμα καταφθίμενον πυροφόροιο Γέλας· ἀλκὴν δ’ εὐδόκιμον Μαραθώνιον ἄλσος ἂν εἴποι καὶ βαρυχαιτήεις Μῆδος ἐπιστάμενος	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

A 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 celebrated for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine. In Athens, the two major theatre festivals were the Lenea in January and the more important Dionysia in the spring. These festivals began with an opening procession, continued with a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. 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. There followed a second competition of five comedic playwrights like Euripides, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.

Aeschylus entered many of these competitions in his lifetime, though of the estimated 70 to 90 plays that he wrote only six, with a seventh of disputed authenticity, have survived into the modern era. The earliest of these that still exists is The Persians (Persai), performed in 472 BC and based on experiences in Aeschylus' own life, specifically the Battle of Salamis. It is unique both in its aformentioned importance for historians of the Persian Wars but also because the majority of Greek plays of that era concerned stories about the gods rather than stories of earthly events. The Persians, though, does focus on the popular Greek theme of hubris, blaming Persia's loss in the war on the overwhelming pride of its king.

The theme of the gods interfering in human affairs, and placing them in difficult situations, continues in Seven Against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas), which was performed in 467 BC. Its tragic story of a war between Thebes and Argos also marks the first known appearance in Aeschylus' work of a theme which would continue through his plays, that of the polis (the city or citizenship) as the highest development of human civilization. He would continue that theme 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.

The most complete tetralogy of Aeschylus work that still exist 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. The trilogy tells the bloody story of the family of Agamemnon, his death at the hands of his wife Clytemnestra, her death at the hands of their son Orestes, and the question of Orestes' guilt. The Eumenides specifically extols the importance of reason in the development of laws, and like The Supplicants lauds the ideals of a democratic Athens.

In addition to these six works, historians in antiquity attributed to Aeschylus a seventh play, Prometheus Bound, although there is debate among modern scholars as to whether it was written by another author. Lost and fragmentary works of Aeschylus include Phineas, Glaukos Potnieus and Prometheus Pyrkaeus, a satyr play, belonging to the same tetralogy as The Persians; Laios, Oedipus and Sphynx, another satyr play, belonging to the same tetralogy as Seven Against Thebes; Proteus, the satyr play belonging to the Oresteia tetralogy; Eleusians and The Net-pullers.

Influence on Greek drama and culture

A 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. Aeschylus added a second actor, such that the actors themselves could have conflicts and engage in dialogue, while the chorus took less immediate a role. 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.

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. Scholars assume that the weighty themes of his plays were intended to inspire thought and conversation among Athenian audiences, but almost no sources exist that describe how audiences engaged intellectually with Greek theater. What is certain, though, is the high regard in which Aeschylus was held by the Athenians. For many years following his death, the epic and prize-winning plays of Aeschylus continued to be performed by actors and actresses for the festival audiences of Athens.

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 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. Routledge Press. ISBN 0415260272

External links

• Selected Poems of Aeschylus
• Selected Monologues by Aeschylus on Monologue Search
• Aeschylus anthology in English and Greek, Select online resources
• Schlegel, August Wilhelm, Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature, 1809. [1]
• Works by Aeschylus at Project Gutenberg
• IMDB list of films based on Aeschylus
• Photo of a fragment of The Net-pullers
• Prometheus Bound