Aeschylus

Aeschylus, i, m., = Αἰσχύλος.

• The first great tragic poet of Greece, the originator of the Greek drama, Hor. A. P. 278; Cic. Tusc. 2, 10.—
• II A rhetorician of Cnidos, a contemporary of Cicero, Cic. Brut. 95.

Aeschylus, ī, (griech. Akk. on, Sidon. carm. 9, 235) m. (Αἰσχύλος), I) der bekannte griech. Tragödiendichter zu Athen (geb. 525 v. Ch. zu Eleusis), der eigentl. Begründer der attischen Tragödie, Cic. de or. 3, 27. Hor. de art. poët. 278. Quint. 10, 1, 6. – Dav. Aeschylēus, a, um (Αἰσχύλειος), äschylëisch, cothurnus, Prop. 2, 34, 41 (wo die vorletzte Silbe kurz steht). – II) ein Rhetor aus Knidos, Zeitgenosse Ciceros, Cic. Brut. 325.

Æschўlus, ī, m. (Αἰσχύλος), ¶ 1 Eschyle [poète tragique grec] : Cic. de Or. 3, 27 || -ēus, a, um, eschyléen : Prop. 2, 34, 41 ¶ 2 rhéteur de Gnide, contemporain de Cicéron : Cic. Br. 325.

Ae'schylus

(Αἰσχύλος) was born at Eleusis in Attica in B. C. 525, so that he was thirty-five years of age at the time of the battle of Marathon, and contemporary with Simonides and Pindar. His father Euphorion was probably connected with the worship of Demeter, from which Aeschylus may naturally be supposed to have received his first religious impressions. He was himself, according to some authorities, initiated in the mysteries, with reference to which, and to his birthplace Eleusis, Aristophanes (Aristoph. Frogs 884) makes him pray to the Elensinian goddess. Pausanias (1.21.2) relates an anecdote of him, which, if true, shews that he was struck in very early youth with the exhibitions of the drama. According to this story, " When he was a boy he was set to watch grapes in the country, and there fell asleep. In his slumbers Dionysus appeared to him, and ordered him to apply himself to tragedy. At daybreak he made the attempt, and succeeded very easily." Such a dream as this could hardly have resulted from anything but the impression produced by tragic exhibitions upon a warm imagination. At the age of 25 (B. C. 499), he made his first appearance as a competitor for the prize of tragedy, against Choerilus and Pratinas, without however being successful. Sixteen years afterward (B. C. 484), Aeschylus gained his first victory. The titles of the pieces which he then brought out are not known, but his competitors were most probably Pratinas and Phrynichus or Choerilus. Eight years afterwards he gained the prize with the trilogy of which the Persae, the earliest of his extant dramas, was one piece. The whole number of victories attributed to Aeschylus amounted to thirteen, most of which were gained by him in the interval of sixteen years, between B. C. 484, the year of his first tragic victory, and the close of the Persian war by Cimon's double victory at the Eurymedon, B. C. 470. (Bode, Gesch. der Hellen. Dichtkunst, iii. p. 212.) The year B. C. 468 was the date of a remarkable event in the poet's life. In that year he was defeated in a tragic contest by his younger rival Sophocles, and if we may believe Plutarch (Plut. Cim. 8), his mortification at this indignity, as he conceived it, was so great, that he quitted Athens in disgust the very same year, and went to the court of Hiero (Paus. 1.2.3), king of Syracuse, where he found Simonides the lyric poet, who as well as himself was by that prince most hospitably received. Of the fact of his having visited Sicily at the time alluded to, there can be no doubt; but whether the motive alleged by Plutarch for his doing so was the only one, or a real one, is a question of considerable difficulty, though of little practical moment. It may be, as has been plausibly maintained by some authors, that Aeschylus, whose family and personal honours were connected with the glories of Marathon, and the heroes of the Persian war, did not sympathise with the spirit of aggrandisement by which the councils of his country were then actuated, nor approve of its policy in the struggle for the supremacy over Greece. The contemporaries of his earlier years, Miltiades, Aristeides, and Themistocles, whose achievements in the service of their country were identified with those of himself and his family, had been succeeded by Cimon : and the aristocratical principles which Aeschylus supported were gradually being supplanted and overborne by the advance of democracy. From all this, Aeschylus might have felt that he was outliving his principles, and have felt it the more keenly, from Cimon, the hero of the day, having been one of the judges who awarded the tragic prize to Sophocles in preference to himself. (Plut. l.c.) On this supposition, Athens could not have been an agreeable residence to a person like Aeschylus, and therefore he might have been disposed to leave it; but still it is more than probable that his defeat by Sophocles materially influenced his determinations, and was at any rate the proximate cause of his removing to Sicily. It has been further conjectured that the charge of ἀσέβεια or impiety which was brought against Aeschylus for an alleged publication of the mysteries of Ceres (Aristot. Eth. 3.1), but possibly from political motives, was in some measure connected with his retirement from his native country. If this were really the case, it follows, that the play or plays which gave the supposed offence to the Athenians, must have been published before B. C. 468, and therefore that the trilogy of the Oresteia could have had no connexion with it. Shortly before the arrival of Aeschylus at the court of Hiero, that prince had built the town of Aetna, at the bottom of the mountain of that name, and on the site of the ancient Catana : in connexion with this event, Aeschylus is said to have composed his play of the Women of Aetna (B. C. 471, or 472), in which he predicted and prayed for the prosperity of the new city. At the request of Hiero, he also reproduced the play of the Persae, with the trilogy of which he had been victorious in the dramatic contests at Athens. (B. C. 472.) Now we know that the trilogy of the Seven against Thebes was represented soon after the " Persians :" it follows therefore that the former trilogy must have been first represented not later than B. C. 470. (Welcker, Trilogie, p. 520; Schol. ad Aristoph. Ran. 1053.) Aristeides, who died in B. C. 468, was living at the time. (Plut. Arist. 3.) Besides The Women of Aetna, Aeschylus also composed other pieces in Sicily, in which are said to have occurred Sicilian words and expressions not intelligible to the Athenians. (Athen. 9.402b.) From the number of such words and expressions, which have been noticed in the later extant plays of Aeschylus, it has been inferred that he spent a considerable time in Sicily, on this his first visit. We must not however omit to mention, that, according to some accounts, Aeschylus also visited Sicily about B. C. 488, previous to what we have considered his first visit. (Bode, Id. iii. p. 215.) The occasion of this retirement is said to have been the victory gained over him by Simonides, to whom the Athenians adjudged the prize for the best elegy on those who fell at Maarathon. This tradition, however, is not supported by strong independent testimony, and accordingly its truth has been much questionned. Suidas indeed states that Aeschylus had visited Sicily even before this, when he was only twenty-five years of age (B. C. 499), immediately after his first contest with Pratinas, on which occasion the crowd of spectators was so great as to cause the fall of the wooden planks (ἴκρια) or temporary scaffolding, on which they were accommodated with seats.

In B. C. 467, his friend and patron king Hiero died; and in B. C. 458, it appears that Aeschylus was again at Athens from the fact that the trilogy of the Oresteia was produced in that year. The conjecture of Böckh, that this might have been a second representation in the absence of the poet, is not supported by any probable reasons, for we have no intimation that the Oresteia ever had been acted before. (Hermann, Opuse. ii. p. 137.) In the same or the following year (B. C. 457), Aeschylus again visited Sicily for the last time, and the reason assigned for this his second or as others conceive his fourth visit to this island, is both probable and sufficient. The fact is, that in his play of the Eumenides, the third and last of the three plays which made up the Orestean trilogy, Aeschylus proved himself a decided supporter of the ancient dignities and power of that " watchful guardian " of Athens, the aristocratical court of the Areiopagus, in opposition to Pericles and his democratical coadjutors. With this trilogy Aeschylus was indeed successful as a poet, but not as a politician : it did not produce the effects he had wished and intended, and he found that he had striven in vain against the opinions and views of a generation to which he did not belong. Accordingly it has been conjectured that either from disappointment or fear of the consequences, or perhaps from both these causes, he again quitted Athens, and retired once more to Sicily. But another reason, which, if founded on truth, perhaps operated in conjunction with the former, has been assigned for his last sojourn in Sicily. This rests on a statement made more or less distinctly by various authors, to the effect that Aeschylus was accused of impiety before the court of the Areiopagus, and that he would have been condemned but for the interposition of his brother Ameinias, who had distinguished himself at the battle of Salamis. (Aelian, Ael. VH 5.19.) According to some authors this accusation was preferred against him, for having in some of his plays either divulged or profanely spoken of the mysteries of Ceres. According to others, the charge originated from his having introduced on the stage the dread goddesses, the Eumenides, which he had done in such a way as not only to do violence to popular prejudice, but also to excite the greatest alarm among the spectators. Now, the Eumenides contains nothing which can be considered as a publication of the mysteries of Ceres, and therefore we are inclined to think that his political enemies availed themselves of the unpopularity he had incurred by his Chorus of Furies, to get up against him a charge of impiety, which they supported not only by what was objectionable in the Eumenides, but also in other plays not now extant. At any rate, from the number of authorities all confirming this conclusion, there can be no doubt that towards the end of his life Aeschylus incurred the serious displeasure of a strong party at Athens, and that after the exhibition of the Orestean trilogy he retired to Gela in Sicily, where he died B. C. 456, in the 69th year of his age, and three years after the representation of the Eumenides. On the manner of his death the ancient writers are unanimous. (Suidas, s. v. Χελωνημιῶν.) An eagle, say they, mistaking the poet's bald head for a stone, let a tortoise fall upon it to break the shell, and so fulfilled an oracle, according to which Aeschylus was fated to die by a blow from heaven. The inhabitants of Gela shewed their regard for his character, by public solemnities in his honour, by erecting a noble monument to him, and inscribing it with an epitaph written by himself. (Paus. 1.14.4; Ath. 14.627. d. Vit. Anon.) In it Gela is mentioned as the place of his burial, and the field of Marathon as the place of his most glorious achievements; but no mention is made of his poetry, the only subject of commemoration in the later epigrams written in his honour. At Athens also his name and memory were holden in especial reverence, and the prophecy in which he (Ath. 8.347, e. f.) is said to have predicted his own posthumous fame, when he was first defeated by Sophocles, was amply fulfilled. His pieces were frequently reproduced on the stage; and by a special decree of the people, a chorus was provided at the expense of the state for any one who might wish to exhibit his tragedies a second time. (Aristoph. Ach. 102; Aeschyl. vita.) Hence Aristophanes (Aristoph. Frogs 892) makes Aeschylus say of himself, that his poetry did not die with him; and even after his death, he may be said to have gained many victories over his successors in Attic tragedy. (Hermann, Opusc. ii. p. 158.) The plays thus exhibited for the first time may either have been those which Aeschylus had not produced himself, or such as had been represented in Sicily, and not at Athens, during his lifetime. The individuals who exhibited his dramatic remains on the Attic stage were his sons Euphorion and Bion : the former of whom was, in B. C. 431, victorious with a tetralogy over Sophocles and Euripides (Argum. Eurip. Med.), and in addition to this is said to have gained four victories with dramatic pieces of his father's never before represented. Blomfield, ad Argum. Agam. p. 20.) Philocles also, the son of a sister of Aeschylus, was victorious over the King Oedipus of Sophocles, probably with a tragedy of his uncle's. (Argum. Soph. Oed. Tyr.) From and by means of these persons arose what was called the Tragic School of Aeschylus, which continued for the space of 125 years.

We have hitherto spoken of Aeschylus as a poet only; but it must not be forgotten that he was also highly renowned as a warrior. His first achievements as a soldier were in the battle of Marathon, in which his brother Cynaegeirus and himself so highly distinguished themselves, that their exploits were commemorated with a descriptive painting in the theatre of Athens, which was thought to be much older than the statue there erected in honour of Aeschylus. (Paus. 1.21.2.) The epitaph which he wrote on himself, proves that he considered his share in that battle as the most glorious achievement of his life, though he was also engaged at Artemisium, Salamis, and Plataea. (Paus. 1.14.4.) All his family, indeed, were distinguished for bravery. His younger brother Ameinias (Hdt. 8.84; Diod. 11.25) was noted as having commenced the attack on the Persian ships at Salamis, and at Marathon no one was so perseveringly brave as Cynaegeirus. (Hdt. 6.114.) Hence we may not unreasonably suppose, that the gratitude of the Athenians for such services contributed somewhat to a due appreciation of the poet's merits, and to the tragic victory which he gained soon after the battle of Marathon (B. C. 484) and before that of Salamis. Nor can we wonder at the peculiar vividness and spirit with which he portrays the " pomp and circumstance" of war, as in the Persae, and the " Seven against Thebes," describing its incidents and actions as one who had really been an actor in scenes such as he paints. Assessment

The style of Aeschylus is bold, energetic, and sublime, full of gorgeous imagery, and magnificent expressions such as became the elevated characters of his dramas, and the ideas he wished to express. (Aristoph. Frogs 934.) This sublimity of diction was however sometimes carried to an extreme, which made his language turgid and inflated, so that as Quintilian (10.1) says of him, " he is grandiloquent to a fault." In the turn of his expressions, the poetical predominates over the syntactical. He was peculiarly fond of metaphorical phrases and strange compounds, and obsolete language, so that he was much more epic in his language than either Sophocles or Euripides, and excelled in displaying strong feelings and impulses, and describing the awful and the terrible, rather than in exhibiting the workings of the human mind under the influence of complicated and various motives. But notwithstanding the general elevation of his style, the subordinate characters in his plays, as the watchman in the Agamemnon, and the nurse of Orestes in the Choephoroe, are made to use language fitting their station, and less removed from that of common life.

The characters of Aeschylus, like his diction, are sublime and majestic,--they were gods and heroes of colossal magnitude, whose imposing aspect could be endured by the heroes of Marathon and Salamis, but was too awful for the contemplation of the next generation, who complained that Aeschylus' language was not human. (Aristoph. Frogs 1056.) Hence the general impressions produced by the poetry of Aeschylus were rather of a religious than of a moral nature : his personages being both in action and suffering, superhuman, and therefore not always fitted to teach practical lessons. He produces indeed a sort of religious awe, and dread of the irresistible power of the gods, to which man is represented as being entirely subject; but on the other hand humanity often appears as the sport of an irrevocable destiny, or the victim of a struggle between superior beings. Still Aeschylus sometimes discloses a providential order of compensation and retribution, while he always teaches the duty of resignation and submission to the will of the gods, and the futility and fatal consequences of all opposition to it. See Quarterly Review, No. 112, p. 315.

With respect to the construction of his plays, it has been often remarked, that they have little or no plot, and are therefore wanting in dramatic interest: this deficiency however may strike us more than it otherwise would in consequence of most of his extant plays being only parts, or acts of a more complicated drama. Still we cannot help being impressed with the belief, that he was more capable of sketching a vast outline, than of filling up its parts, however bold and vigorous are the sketches by which he portrays and groups his characters. His object, indeed, according to Aristophanes, in such plays as the Persae, and the Seven against Thebes, which are more epical than dramatical, was rather to animate his countrymen to deeds of glory and warlike achievement, and to inspire then with generous and elevated sentiments, by a vivid exhibition of noble deeds and characters, than to charm or startle by the incidents of an elaborate plot. (Ran. 1000.) The religious views and tenets of Aeschylus, so far as they appear in his writings, were Homeric. Like Homer, he represents Zeus as the supreme Ruler of the Universe, the source and centre of all things. To him all the other divinities are subject, and from him all their powers and authority are derived. Even Fate itself is sometimes identical with his will, and the result of his decrees. He only of all the beings in heaven and earth is free to act as he pleases. (Prom. 40.)

In Philosophical sentiments, there was a tradition that Aeschylus was a Pythagorean (Cic. Tus. Disp. 2.10); but of this his writings do not furnish any conclusive proof, though there certainly was some similarity between him and Pythagoras in the purity and elevation of their sentiments.

The most correct and lively description of the character and dramatic merits of Aeschylus, and of the estimation in which he was held by his contemporaries and immediate successors, is given by Aristophanes in his Frogs. He is there depicted as proud and impatient, and his style and genius such as we have described it. Aristophanes was evidently a very great admirer of him, and sympathised in no common degree with his political and moral sentiments. He considered Aeschylus as without a rival and utterly unapproachable as a tragic poet; and represents even Sophocles himself as readily yielding to and admitting his superior claims to the tragic throne. But few if any of the ancient critics seem to have altogether coincided with Aristophanes in his estimation of Aeschylus, though they give him credit for his excellences. Thus Dionysius (Dionys. De Poet. Vet. 2.9) praises the originality of his ideas and of his expressions, and the beauty of his imagery, and the propriety and dignity of his characters. Longinus (15) speaks of his elevated creations and imagery, but condemns some of his expressions as harsh and overstrained; and Quintilian (10.1) expresses himself much to the same effect. The expression attributed to Sophocles, that Aeschylus did what was right without knowing it (Athen. 10.428f.), in other words, that he was an unconscious genius, working without any knowledge of or regard to the artistical laws of his profession, is worthy of note. So also is the observation of Schlegel (Lecture iv.), that " Generally considered, the tragedies of Aeschylus are an example amongst many, that in art, as in nature, gigantic productions precede those of regulated symmetry, which then dwindle away into delicacy and insignificance; and that poetry in her first manifestation always approaches nearest to the awfulness of religion, whatever shape the latter may assume among the various races of men." Aeschylus himself used to say of his dramas, that they were fragments of the great banquet of Homer's table. (Athen. 8.347e.) The alterations, made by Aeschylus in the composition and dramatic representation of Tragedy were so great, that he was considered by the Athenians as the father of it, just as Homer was of Epic poetry and Herodotus of History. (Philostr. Vit. Apoll. 6.11.) As the ancients themselves remarked, it was a greater advance from the elementary productions of Thespis, Choerilus, and Phrynichus, to the stately tragedy, of Aeschylus, than from the latter to the perfect and refined forms of Sophocles. It was the advance from infancy if not to maturity, at least to a youthful and vigorous manhood. Even the improvements and alterations introduced by his successors were the natural results and suggestions of those of Aeschylus. The first and principal alteration which he made was the introduction of a second actor δευτεραγωνιστής, Aristot. Poet. 4.16), and the consequent formation of the dialogue properly so called, and the limitation of the choral parts. So great was the effect of this change that Aristotle denotes it by saying, that he made the dialogue, the principal part of the play (τὸν λόγον πρωταγωνιστήν παρεσκεύασεν), instead of the choral part, which was now become subsidiary and secondary. This innovation was of course. adopted by his contemporaries, just as Aeschylus himself (e. g. in the Choephoroe 665-716) followed the example of Sophocles, in subsequently introducing a third actor. The characters in his plays were sometimes represented by Aeschylus himself. (Athen. 1.39.) In the early part of his career he was supported by an actor named Cleandrus, and afterwards by Myniscus of Chalchis. (Vita apud Robert. p. 161.) The dialogue between the two principal characters in the plays of Aeschylus was generally kept up in a strictly symmetrical form, each thought or sentiment of the two speakers being expressed in one or two unbroken lines : e. g. as the dialogue between. Kratos and Hephaestus at the beginning of the Prometheus. In the same way, in the Seven against Thebes, Eteocles always expresses himself in three lines between the reflections of the chorus. This arrangement, differing as it does from the forms of ordinary conversation, gives to the dialogue of Aeschylus an elevated and stately character, which bespeaks the conversation of gods and heroes. But the improvements of Aeschylus were not limited to the composition of tragedy : he added the resources of art in its exhibition. Thus, he is said to have availed himself of the skill of Agatharcus, who painted for him the first scenes which had ever been drawn according to the principles of linear perspective. (Vitruv. Praef lib. vii.) He also furnished his actors with more suitable and magnificent dresses, with significant and various masks, and with the thick-soled cothurnus, to raise their statue to the height of heroes. He moreover bestowed so much attention on the choral dances, that he is said to have invented various figures himself, and to have instructed the choristers in them without the aid of the regular ballet-masters. (Athen. 1.21.) So great was Aeschylus' skill as a teacher in this respect, that Telestes, one of his choristers, was able to express by dance alone the various incidents of the play of the Seven against Thebes. (Athen. l.c.) The removal of all deeds of bloodshed and murder from the public view, in conformity with the rule of Horace (A. P. 185), is also said to have been a practice introduced by Aeschylus, (Philos. Vit. Apol. 6.11.) With him also arose the usage of representing at the same time a triogy of plays connected in subject, so that each formed one act, as it were, of a great whole, which might be compared with some of Shakespeare's historical plays. Even before the time of Aeschylus, it had been customary to contend for the prize of tragedy with three plays exhibited at the same time, but it was reserved for him to shew how each of three tragedies might be complete in itself, and independent of the rest, and nevertheless form a part of a harmonious and connected whole. The only example still extant of such a trilogy is the Oresteia, as it was called. A Satyrical play commonly followed each tragic trilogy, and it is recorded that Aeschylus was no less a master of the ludicrous than of the serious drama. (Paus. 2.13.5.) Works.

Aeschylus is said to have written seventy tragedies. Of these only seven are extant, namely, the Persians, the Seven against Thebes, the Suppliants, the Prometheus, the Agamemnon, the Choephoroe, and Eumenides ; the last three forming, as already remarked, the trilogy of the Oresteia. The Persians was acted in B. C. 472, and the Seven against Thebes a year afterwards. The Oresteia was represented in B. C. 458; the Suppliants and the Prometheus were brought out some time between the Seven against Thebes and the Oresteia. It has been supposed from some allusions in the Suppliants, that this play was acted in B. C. 461, when Athens was allied with Argos. Editions

The first edition of Aeschylus was printed at Venice, 1518, 8vo.; but parts of the Agamemnon and the Choephoroe are not printed in this edition, and those which are given, are made up into one play. Of the subsequent editions the best was by Stanley, Lond. 1663, fo. with the Scholia and a commentary, reedited by Butler. The best recent editions are by Wellauer, Lips. 1823, W. Dindorf, Lips. 1827, and Scholefield, Camb. 1830. There are numerous editions of various plays, of which those most worthy of mention are by Blomfield, Müller, Klausen, and Peile. Translations

The principal English translations are by Potter, Harford, and Medwin. Further Information

Petersen, De Aeschyli Vita et Fabulis, Havniae, 1814; Welcker, Die Aeschyl. Trilogie Prometheus, Darmstadt, 1824, Nachtrag zur Trilogie, Frankf. 1826, and Die Griech. Tragödien, Bonn, 1840; Klausen, Theologumena Aeschyli Tragici, Berol. 1829. [R.W]

Ae'schylus of Alexandria

(Αἰσχύλος), of Alexandria, an epic poet, who must have lived previous to the end of the second century of our aera, and whom Athenaeus calls a well-informed man. One of his poems bore the title " Amphitryon," and another " Messeniaca." A fragment of the former is preserved in Athenaeus. (xiii. p. 599.) According to Zenobius (5.85), he had also written a work on proverbs. (Περὶ Παροιμιῶν; compare Schneidewin, Praefat. Paroemiogr. p. xi.) [L.S]

Ae'schylus

of Cnidus, a contemporary of Cicero, and one of the most celebrated rhetoricians in Asia Minor. (Cic. Brut. 91, 95.)

Ae'schylus of Rhodes

(Αἰσχύλος), of Rhodes, was appointed by Alexander the Great one of the inspectors of the governors of that country after its conquest in B. C. 332. (Arrian, Arr. Anab. 3.5; comp. Curt. 4.8.) He is not spoken of again till B. C. 319, when he is mentioned as conveying in four ships six hundred talents of silver from Cilicia to Macedonia, which were detained at Ephesus by Antigonus, in order to pay his foreign mercenaries. (Diod. 18.52.)

Aeschylus

(Αἰσχύλος). The son of Euphorion, born in the Attic deme of Eleusis in the year B.C. 525. The period of his youth and early manhood coincides with the great national struggle which both Asiatic and European Hellas were forced to wage against the barbarians in the first twenty years of the fifth century. In this conflict he played the part of a brave soldier at the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea, and his works abound in traces of the warlike and patriotic feeling of those stirring days. His brother Cynegirus met an heroic death at Marathon, and another distinguished soldier of Salamis, Aminias, is said to have been of the same family, but this is probably an error. We know little of the youth and education of Aeschylus, but it is certain that he began his career as a tragic poet before the age of thirty years, though his first victory was not gained till 485. About the year 470 he went to Sicily at the invitation of King Hieroof Syracuse. Here he composed his Aetnaean Women (Αἰτναῖαι), in honour of the newly founded city of Aetna. His departure from Athens has been ascribed to an indictment by the Athenians for profanation of the mysteries. But it was the policy of Hiero to attract literary men to his brilliant court, and the presence of Aeschylus there needs no more explanation than that of Simonides and Pindar during the same period. Later in his life he visited Sicily a second time, where he met his death in 456. Among the many mythical details with which tradition has surrounded the life of Aeschylus, it is said that he was killed by an eagle letting fall a tortoise upon his bald head, supposing it to be a stone. The high honour in which he was held by the Athenians after his death is shown by the fact that in later times it was made lawful to reproduce his plays in competition for the prize against new tragedies.

Aeschylus is said to have produced seventy-two, or even ninety dramas, and to have gained the first prize thirteen times. As each poet competed with four plays (three tragedies and a satyric drama), it appears that Aeschylus was successful in more than half of all his contests. Only seven of his tragedies have come down to us. They will be described in what seems to have beén their chronological order.

(1) The Suppliants (Ἱκέτιδες) takes its name from the chorus representing the fifty daughters of Danaüs fleeing to Argos for protection from the sons of Aegyptus. The prominence of the chorus, the small number of characters, and the absence of a prologue mark this play as the earliest of those of Aeschylus which we have, and consequently the oldest Greek drama extant. Its undeniable merits are much obscured by the very corrupt state of the text.

(2) The Persians (Πέρσαι) is unique among the Greek tragedies which we possess in drawing its theme from history rather than from myth. The central point of interest is found in a splendid narrative of the battle of Salamis, but by an artifice of the poet the scene of the play is laid in Susa, and the laments of Atossa and the Persian nobles supply the tragic elements. The Persians was produced in B.C. 472, as part of a tetralogy consisting of the Phineus, Persians, Glaucus ποτνιεύς, and Prometheus the Fire-kindler (πυρκαεύς).

(3) The Seven against Thebes (Ἑπτὰ ἐπὶ Θήβας) was produced in B.C. 467, as the third play in a tetralogy of which the remaining pieces were the Laïus, Oedipus, and the satyric drama called The Sphinx. It includes a magnificent description of the seven Argive champions and their Theban opponents, with the final victory of Thebes, and a hint, at the close, of the Antigoné-motive, afterwards so finely worked out by Sophocles. In this play, as in the Persians, the martial spirit of Aeschylus finds ample room for manifestation. Both dramas are “full of war,” to quote the words of Aristophanes (Frogs, 1021).

(4) The Prometheus Bound (Προμηθεὺς δεσμώτης), with its companion pieces the Prometheus Loosed (λυόμενος) and the Prometheus the Fire-bearer (πυρφόρος), treated the history of the rebellious Titan who steadfastly suffered the wrath of Zeus for his benefactions to mankind. The Prometheus Bound, the only play of the trilogy which has come down to us, depicts the hero, fettered to a rock in Scythia, and threatened by Hermes with a penalty still more severe. But he proudly refuses to submit to the will of the new ruler of Olympus, and at the close of the play he is struck by the thunderbolt, and, with the rock to which he is fastened, sinks out of sight. The second play described the final reconciliation and the liberation of Prometheus; while the third (see Westphal's Proleg. to Aeschylus, p. 207 foll.) probably celebrated the establishment of Prometheus in Attica as a benignant deity. No Greek tragedy has been more admired than the Prometheus Bound. In the grandeur of its action and the sublimity of character displayed, as well as in the exquisite pathos of some of its scenes, it stands almost unequalled. The Prometheus trilogy was probably produced either in B.C. 468 or 466 (Christ), or about ten years earlier (Wecklein).

(5) The trilogy composed of the Agamemnon (Ἀγαμέμνων), Choephori (Χοηφόροι), and Eumenides (Εὐμενίδες), comes last in the list, and is of special interest from the fact that it is the only complete trilogy which is extant from any of the Greek tragedians. In the Agamemnon the poet describes the return of the victorious king from Troy, and his murder by Clytaemnestra and her paramour Aegisthus. In the Choephori, Orestes, son of Agamemnon, now grown to manhood, returns, and with the help of his friend Pylades avenges the murder of his father by putting to death the guilty pair, and is himself, in turn, driven frantic by the Erinyes. In the Eumenides he flees to Athens, where he is tried, and by the advocacy of Apollo and the casting vote of Athené he is acquitted, and the family curse comes to an end. This great trilogy shows the genius of Aeschylus in its loftiest form. Each play is complete in itself, and yet each is but a single act in the mighty drama of crime, vengeance, and expiation. The Agamemnon is the most powerful of the three plays, and probably the greatest work of Aeschylus, if indeed it is not the most impressive tragedy in existence. The trilogy is usually known as the Oresteia (Ὀρέστεια), and, with the satyric play Proteus (Πρωτεύς), was produced in B.C. 458.

The extant works of Aeschylus show a constant progress in dramatic art. He is said to have added a second actor to the one employed by his predecessors, and in his later plays he adopts, and uses with full mastery, the third actor first introduced by his younger rival, Sophocles. The choral parts, at first the most prominent feature both in extent and importance, gradually give way before the growth of the dialogue. In the scenic effects, too, Aeschylus made many improvements, using extraordinary means to excite wonder or awe. Like Wagner, he was both poet and musician, and, besides training his own choruses, he is said to have taken part as actor in the performances themselves.

The most characteristic feature of his poetry is its grandeur, both of thought and style, though he is none the less master of lyric beauty and tender pathos. His theology is stern and lofty, and pervaded by the idea of a destiny which controls all things, human and divine. But the hereditary curse that brooded over the families of Labdacus and Pelops was always aided in its destrnctive work by the folly and wickedness of the victims themselves. No poet, in fact, has stated more impressively than Aeschylus the inevitable connection between guilt and punishment. His style, it must be confessed, is sometimes so elevated as to seem almost bombastic, but this apparent fault is the natural result of the poet's mighty current of thought, which could not find vent in the ordinary channels of expression.

All the existing MSS. of Aeschylus are said by W. Dindorf to be derived from the Codex Mediceus (Laurentianus), which dates back to the eleventh century, and contains many valuable scholia taken from the ancient grammarians. It is the chief authority for the Choephori, of which, however, the text is in a bad condition. The Prometheus, Seven against Thebes, and Persians are more fully represented by MSS. than the other plays. Two codices of the fourteenth century (Florentinus and Farnesianus) supply that portion of the Agamemnon (lines 295- 1026) which is missing from the Codex Mediceus.

The Aldine editio princeps (1518) and the edition of Stanley (London, 1663) are worthy of note among the older editions. To these may be added among later works the editions of Hermann (Leipzig, 1852), Kirchhoff (Berlin, 1880), Weil (Leipzig, 1885), and the valuable critical edition of Wecklein-Vitelli (Berlin, 1885). Paley's (London, 1879) is the most convenient English edition of all the plays with notes. Annotated editions of single plays are numerous. Among the more recent are Wecklein's Oresteia (Leipzig, 1888), Schneidewin-Heuse's Agamemnon (Berlin, 1883), Allen's Wecklein's Prometheus (Boston, 1891), Teuffel-Wecklein's Persians (Leipzig, 1886), Tucker's Suppliants (London, 1889), and Flagg's Seven against Thebes (Boston, 1886). Dindorf's Lexicon Aeschyleum (Leipzig, 1873) is an indispensable work to the student. The best complete English translation is that of Plumptre; but for the Agamemnon and the Prometheus we are fortunate in having versions of great excellence by Robert Browning and Mrs. Browning respectively.

Aeschylus Aeschylus, father of Aesimedes

• Paus. 4.5.10

Aeschylus(2), father of sculptor Asterion

• Paus. 6.3.1

Aeschylus(3), father of Symmachus

• Paus. 6.1.3

Aeschylus(4), son of Euphorion life of Aeschylus

Birth of Aeschylus at Eleusis in Attica c. 525/524

Death of Aeschylus at Gela in Sicily c. 456/455

No reliable contemporary source provides us with any detailed information about the life of Aeschylus, but later sources allow us to piece together an outline. The Parian Marbleinforms us that Aeschylus was thirty-five years old at the battle of Marathon. A bit later, the same source asserts that Aeschylus died at the city of Gela in Sicily in 456/55 and informs us that he was sixty-nine years old at the time. This would place his birth at 525/4.

Later sources (the Life of Aeschylusand a scholarly commentary on Aristoph. Frogs 886ff.) identify Aeschylus’ place of birth as Eleusis, the most famous center for the cult of Demeter in Greece. Aristophanes alludes to this birthplace at Aristoph. Frogs 886-7when he has Aeschylus call upon Demeter who nurtured his spirit. Aristotle comments that one can let slip “things which are impious to tell” (ἀπόρρητα) “just as Aeschylus and the mysteries,” by which he surely means the mysteries of Eleusis. Revealing these secrets to the uninitiated was a capital offence, and later ancient scholarship reported elaborate tales of the author's unintentional impiety (he accidentally revealed too much about the mysteries in one of his plays) and its consequences. According to one version, Aeschylus was almost murdered on stage.

Career

Aeschylus produces his first play 500/499-497/496

Aeschylus’ first victory 484

The Sudaarticle on another tragic poet, Pratinas, tells us that Pratinas competed with Aeschylus in the first years of the fifth century. The Parian Marble, a chronology of the ancient world preserved on a third century BC inscription, tells us that Aeschylus won his first victory in the same year that Euripides was born, 485/4. Since we know that tragedies were performed in the early spring, we know that Aeschylus’ victory took place in 484 rather than in the second half of 485.

Number of victories by Aeschylus: 13

Number of plays composed by Aeschylus: ??

The Vita (section 13) reports thirteen victories, the Suda's article on Aeschylus twenty eight. Most scholars assume that the Suda's article would include victories outside the City Dionysia, the main festival at which tragedies are performed. The lower figure would account for fifty two plays (since each victory reflects the fate of an entire tetralogy).

contacts with Sicily

During Aeschylus’ lifetime, Sicily was home to some of the richest and most powerful Greek states. Later tradition records at least two different periods during which Aeschylus visited Sicily.

Aeschylus produces the Women of Aitnain Sicily 476/475

Aeschylus produces a performance of the Persiansat Syracuse: 472/1-456/5

In 476/475, Hieron, the tyrant of Syracuse and the most powerful single man in the Greek world, founded the city of Aitna. According to the Vita, Aeschylus composed the play Women of Aitna, “presenting it as a favorable omen for the fortunate life of those who were founding the city” (Vita Aeschyli 9 : οἰωνιζόμενος βίον ἀγαθὸν τοῖς συνοικίζουσι τὴν πόλιν). The Vita Aeschyli18simply observes that Aeschylus, being highly esteemed by Hieron, put on a successful performance of the Persiansin Sicily. Since the Persianswas performed for the first time in 472, we know that this visit must be separate from the time in which he put on the earlier Women of Aitna.

The Parian Marbleinforms us that Aeschylus died at Gela, but we cannot be certain that he did not die during the same trip in which he staged the Persians. The Vita is especially problematic and contains many problems, but, whatever the chronology, Aeschylus probably had extensive dealings with the great men who held power in Sicily.

importance and Influence of Aeschylus

The Vita Aeschylioffers a survey of Aeschylus’ contribution to tragedy. This type of judgment seems to be derived directly from the texts preserved in antiquity and is not as unreliable as the often fanciful reconstructions of Aeschylus’ life. Aeschylus, we are told (Vita Aeschyli 14), was “the first to make tragedy more grand by means of nobler emotions. He decked out the stage and stunned his audience with brilliant visual effects, with paintings and machines, with stage props such as altars and tombs, with trumpets, ghosts, and Furies.” He created for his actors costumes that were both elaborate and exotic, and contributed to the overall impression of grandeur. “Whoever thinks,” the Vita continues a bit later (Vita Aeschyli 16), “that Sophocles was the more effective composer of tragedy, thinks correctly, but let him consider how much more difficult it was in the time of Thespis, Phrynichos, and Choirilos (earlier tragedians whose work is now lost] to bring tragedy up to such a level of greatness than it was for one entering the scene at the time of Aeschylus to bring it to the perfection of a Sophocles.” The Athenians produced something called tragoidiain the generation before Aeschylus, but it was Aeschylus who largely seems to have created “tragedy” in the sense in which we now understand it.

Aeschylean tragedy is, above all, grand, massive and dignified. The language is heavy and, in the Greek, often difficult to understand, full of compound forms and complex metaphors. In the Frogsof Aristophanes (performed in 405), Dionysus, the patron god of tragedy, resolves to enter the Underworld and bring back with him the playwright Euripides, who had died in 407/6. Once Dionysus reaches the Underworld, however, the play turns into a contest between the recently deceased Euripides and Aeschylus, who had been dead for a half century. The elaborate confrontation between the two playwrights remains one of the best analyses of their styles and vividly portrays the way in which fifth-century Athenians viewed them. Aeschylus is parodied as pompous and incomprehensible, but the parody is affectionate and emphasizes as well the power of his language. In the end, Dionysus brings back with him not Euripides (as he had originally intended) but Aeschylus. Aeschylus held a firm grip on his fellow Athenians throughout the fifth century, and Aristophanes, Frogsillustrates the strength of this hold.

Only new tragedies were normally allowed at the tragic festival, but a special exception seems to have been made so that Aeschylus’ work could be revived after his death. According to several late sources, the Athenian people decreed shortly after Aeschylus’ death that his plays could be staged again, and Aeschylus’ work thus continued to win victories even after his death. In the opening of Aristophanes, Acharnians (produced in 425, more than thirty years after Aeschylus had died) the speaker describes how he had breathlessly anticipated a new performance of Aeschylus (Aristoph. Ach. 9-11). In the Clouds (first performed in 423, though our version is a revision from 418/17), an archetypal Athenian man of the older generation asks his son to recite for him poetry of Aeschylus (Aristoph. Cl. 1364). A change of taste against Aeschylus seems to have set in among younger Athenians. The son refuses and ridicules Aeschylus as pompous and old-fashioned. It is clear from Aristoph. Frogsthat Athenians associated the poetic and theatrical magnificence of Aeschylus with the unprecedented wealth and material power which they acquired during the course of the fifth century. When the empire fell and Athens assumed a diminished position, Euripides surpassed Aeschylus in popularity.

Surviving Works

Production of Persians472

Production of Seven Against Thebesby the young Perikles 468

Production of Suppliant Women463?

Production of Oresteia Trilogy (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides) 458

Production of [Prometheus Bound]450-425

The fragmentary remains of ancient records fortunately link five of Aeschylus’ plays to three separate dates. The Persianswas performed in 472, and we even learn that the Athenian Perikles was the choregos,the wealthy Athenian who underwrote the cost of the production. At that point only in his early twenties, Perikles would a decade later become the most powerful man in Athens and would lead it during its period of greatest material prosperity. Perikles must have seen the production of the highly patriotic Persians, just eight years after the events which it describes, as a powerful device by which to bring his name before the Athenian people. The Seven Against Thebeswas part of the tetralogy which was victorious in 468, while the Oresteia trilogy (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides) was performed ten years later, in 458.

Of the remaining two surviving tragedies traditionally associated with Aeschylus, the date of one is moderately controversial, while the other is extremely problematic. The Suppliant Womenused to be dated very early in the playwright's career, perhaps as early as the 490s. The reasons for this were stylistic: the chorus dominates the play, there is substantial choral lyric and relatively little action. The play had generally impressed readers as stiff and archaic, and this suggested to most scholars that the play derived from a time when tragedy was still at an early stage of development.

In 1952, a scrap of papyrus, preserved in the dry climate of Egypt, was published, and this fragment showed that the trilogy of which Suppliant Womenis a part was performed at the same time as a play by Sophocles. Since Sophocles’ first performance (and victory) both took place in the year 468 and since the Seven Against Thebeswas victorious in 467, the Suppliant Womenmust be dated to one of the years between 467 and 458, when the Oresteia was produced shortly before his death. The fragmentary papyrus contains letters which may designate the name of the man who was archon at Athens in 463, and thus 463 is a good tentative date for the play.

More complex problems surround the Prometheus Bound. Recent scholarship has strongly suggested that Aeschylus did not even compose the Prometheus Bound. The basis for this conclusion is an exhaustive analysis of stylistic features which repeatedly portray the Prometheus as different from the six other plays still assigned to Aeschylus. Once the play is no longer securely associated with Aeschylus, it becomes dislodged from its chronological moorings. Mark Griffith, the scholar who has done the most work on the authorship of this play, believes that it was probably composed well after Aeschylus’ death. The play could conceivably have been produced at any time between 479 and 415, but the third quarter of the fifth century (450-425) seems to be the most likely time for its composition.

On the life of Aeschylus, see [Lefkowitz, 1981] 67-74, [Rosenmeyer, 1982] 369-376, [Lesky, 1966] 241-271, [Easterling, 1985] 281-295, 761-764. [Radt, 1985] 29-108 presents an exhaustive list of sources on the life of Aeschylus, but without translation.

Conacher, D. J. Aeschylus' Oresteia: A Literary Commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1987. ix+229. Conacher, D. J. Aeschylus' Prometheus bound: a Literary Commentary. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980. xii+198. Gagarin, Michael. Aeschylean Drama. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976. xi+230. Goldhill, Simon. Language, Sexuality, Narrative, the Oresteia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984. ix+315. Griffith, Mark. The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound. Cambridge Classical Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977. xii+419. Herington, C. J. Aeschylus. Hermes Books. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986. ix+191. Kossatz-Deissmann, Anneliese. Dramen des Aischylos auf westgriechischen Vasen. Schriften zur antiken Mythologie. Mainz am Rhein: von Zabern, 1978. 4: xv+178. Lebeck, A. The Oresteia: a Study in Language and Structure. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971. xx+222. Lesky, Albin. A History of Greek Literature. New York: Crowell, 1966. xviii+921. Michelini, Ann M. Tradition and Dramatic form in the Persians of Aeschylus. Cincinnati Classical Studies. Leiden: Brill, 1982. 4: x+162. Prag, A. J. N. W. The Oresteia: Iconographic and Narrative Tradition. Chicago: Bolchazy Carducci, 1985. xi+213. Radt, Stefan. Aeschylus. Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta. Ed. Bruno Snell. Goettingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985. Rosenmeyer, Thomas G. The Art of Aeschylus. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982. 393. Scott, William C. Musical Design in Aeschylean Theater. Hanover, N. H.: University Press of New England, 1984. xxi+228. Smith, Peter M. On the Hymn to Zeus in Aeschylus' Agamemnon. American Classical Studies. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980. 5: xiii+91. Spatz, Lois. Aeschylus. Twayne World Authors Series. Boston: Twayne, 1982. 675: 207. Taplin, Oliver. The Stagecraft of Aeschylus. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. vi+508. Thalman, William G. Dramatic Art in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes. Yale Classical Monographs. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978. 1: viii+193. Vellacott, Philip. The Logic of Tragedy. Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 1984. ix+190. Winnington-Ingram, R. P. Studies in Aeschylus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983. xiii+225. Zeitlin, Froma I. "The Dynamics of Misogyny: Myth and Myth-making in the Oresteia." Arethusa11 (1978): 149-184. Zeitlin, Froma I. Under the Sign of the Shield: Semiotics and Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes. Filologia e Critica. Roma: Edizioni dell' Ateneo, 1982. 44: 227. Gregory Crane

• Paus. 2.24.4, Paus. 8.37.6
• bidden by Dionysus to write tragedy: Paus. 1.21.2
• fought at Marathon, Artemisium and Salamis: Paus. 1.14.5
• at court of Hiero: Paus. 1.2.3
• writes satyric dramas: Paus. 2.13.6
• reference to one of his plays: Hdt. 2.156
• his play about Glaucus: Paus. 9.22.7, Paus. 10.4.7
• the Seven against Thebes: Paus. 2.20.5
• the first to represent Furies with snakes in their hair: Paus. 1.28.6
• applies name of Zeus to sea-god: Paus. 2.24.4
• calls Inachus an Argive river: Paus. 8.6.6
• makes Artemis a daughter of Demeter: Paus. 8.37.6
• his statue in theater at Athens: Paus. 1.21.2