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There are no reliable sources for the life of Aeschylus. He was said to have been born in c. 525 BC in Eleusis, a small town about 27 kilometers northwest of Athens, which is nestled in the fertile valleys of western Attica,[12] though the date is most likely based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was wealthy and well established; his father Euphorion was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica,[13] though this might be a fiction that the ancients invented to account for the grandeur of his plays.[14] As a youth he worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy.[13] 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;[12][13] He would win his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.[13][15] In 510 BC, Cleomenes I (Aeschylus was 15 at the time) expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. His reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis.[16] The Persian Wars would play a large role in the playwright's life and career. In 490 BC, Aeschylus and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against Darius I's invading Persian army at the Battle of Marathon.[12] The Athenians emerged triumphant, a victory celebrated across the city-states of Greece.[12] Cynegeirus, however, died in the battle, receiving a mortal wound while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero.[12][16] In 480, Aeschylus was called into military service again, this time against Xerxes I's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis, and perhaps, too, at the Battle of Plataea in 479.[12] Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus's war record and his contribution in Salamis.[16] Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.[17] Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who had been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, a cult to Demeter based in his hometown of Eleusis.[18] As the name implies, members of the cult were supposed to have gained some secret knowledge. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle some thought that Aeschylus had revealed some of the cult's secrets on stage.[19] Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot, but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the crowd watching the play tried to stone Aeschylus. He then took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. When he stood trial for his offense he pleaded ignorance. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to the wounds that Aeschylus and his brother Cynegeirus suffered at Marathon. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus's younger brother Ameinias helped acquit his brother by showing the jury the stump of the hand that he lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went to Ameinias of Pallene, not Aeschylus's brother.[16] Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in the 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I of Syracuse, a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island; and during one of these trips he produced The Women of Aetna (in honor of the city founded by Hieron) and restaged his Persians.[12] 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.[12] In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged the production that included the Persians, with Pericles serving as choregos.[16] In 458 BC, he returned to Sicily for the last time, visiting the city of Gela where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle which had mistook his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell of the reptile.[20] Pliny, in his Naturalis Historiæ, adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object.[20] Aeschylus's work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death, his were the only tragedies allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions.[12] His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights.[12] The inscription on Aeschylus's gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements: Αἰσχύλον Εὐφορίωνος Ἀθηναῖον τόδε κεύθει μνῆμα καταφθίμενον πυροφόροιο Γέλας· ἀλκὴν δ' εὐδόκιμον Μαραθώνιον ἄλσος ἂν εἴποι καὶ βαθυχαιτήεις Μῆδος ἐπιστάμενος[21] Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of Euphorion, the Athenian, who perished in the wheat-bearing land of Gela; of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can speak, and the long-haired Persian knows it well. The inscription on his graveyard signifies according to Castoriadis the primary importance of "belonging to the City", of the solidarity that existed within the collective body of soldiers - citizens. Personal life Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides.[22] His nephew, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.[16][23] A scholiast has noted that Philocles' Tereus was part of his Pandionis tetralogy.[24] Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias. Works Modern picture of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, where many of Aeschylus's plays were performed The roots of Greek drama are in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine.[15] During Aeschylus's lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia in the spring.[15] The festival opened with a procession, followed with a competition of boys singing dithyrambs and culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions.[25] The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in, consisted of three playwrights each presenting three tragic plays followed by a shorter comedic satyr play.[25] A second competition of five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges.[25] Aeschylus entered many of these competitions in his lifetime, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him.[2][26] Only seven tragedies have survived intact: The Persians, Seven against Thebes, The Suppliants, the trilogy known as The Oresteia, consisting of the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides, together with Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia. The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, at an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays. Trilogies One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies, in which each play serves as a chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative.[27] The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The comic satyr plays that follow his trilogies also drew upon stories derived from myths. For example, the Oresteia's satyr play Proteus treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War. Based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia, and play fragments recorded by later authors, it is assumed that three other of his extant plays were components of connected trilogies: Seven against Thebes being the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound each being the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively (see below). Scholars have moreover suggested several completely lost trilogies derived from known play titles. A number of these trilogies treated myths surrounding the Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis, comprised the titles Myrmidons, Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector). Another trilogy apparently recounts the entry of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles (Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy); The Award of the Arms, The Phrygian Women, and The Salaminian Women suggest a trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax; Aeschylus also seems to have written about Odysseus' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers, Penelope and The Bone-gatherers. Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts (Argô, Lemnian Women, Hypsipylê); the life of Perseus (The Net-draggers, Polydektês, Phorkides); the birth and exploits of Dionysus (Semele, Bacchae, Pentheus); and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven against Thebes (Eleusinians, Argives (or Argive Women), Sons of the Seven).[28] Aeschylus (/ˈiːskɨləs/ or /ˈɛskɨləs/;[1] Greek: Αἰσχύλος, Aiskhulos; c. 525/524 BC – c. 456/455 BC) was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays can still be read or performed, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. He is often described as the father of tragedy:[2][3] Our knowledge of the genre begins with his work[4] and our understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays.[5] According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in plays to allow for conflict amongst them, whereas previously characters had interacted only with the chorus.[nb 1] Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived into modern times, and there is a longstanding debate about his authorship of one of these plays, Prometheus Bound. Fragments of some other plays have survived in quotes and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyrus, often giving us surprising insights into his work.[6] He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy; his Oresteia is the only ancient example of the form to have survived.[7] At least one of his works was influenced by the Persian invasion of Greece, which took place during his lifetime. This play, The Persians, is the only extant classical Greek tragedy concerned with recent history (very few of that kind were ever written)[8] and it is a useful source of information about that period. So important was the war to Aeschylus and the Greeks that, upon his death, around 456 BC, his epitaph commemorated his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon rather than his success as a playwright. He was a deep, religious thinker. Few poets have ever presented evil in such stark and tragic terms,[9] yet he had an exalted view of Zeus, whom he celebrated with a grand simplicity reminiscent of the Psalms,[10] and a faith in progress or the healing power of time.[11] |
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