Aeschylus
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Portrait of Aeschylus

Aeschylus

Aeschylus

The father of tragedy

c. 525 BC – 456 BC

Greek Classical Athens

Aeschylus was born around 525 BC at Eleusis, near Athens, into a noble family. He fought at Marathon in 490 BC — a fact he considered more important than anything he ever wrote, as his self-composed epitaph attests. He fought again at Salamis in 480 BC. These experiences of war against overwhelming odds shaped his dramatic imagination permanently.

He is said to have written between seventy and ninety plays, of which seven survive. He won his first victory at the Great Dionysia around 484 BC and dominated the Athenian stage for a generation. His great innovation was the introduction of a second actor, which transformed tragedy from a dialogue between a single performer and the chorus into genuine drama. Before Aeschylus, tragedy was lyric poetry with costumes. After him, it was theatre.

The Oresteia — Agamemnon, Choephori, Eumenides — is the only complete trilogy to survive from ancient Athens. It traces the curse on the house of Atreus from the murder of Agamemnon through Orestes' revenge to his trial and acquittal in Athens, transforming a blood feud into the foundation of civic justice. The Persians dramatises the Battle of Salamis from the Persian perspective — astonishingly, only eight years after the event, and for an audience of veterans. Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and The Suppliants complete the surviving canon.

Aeschylus died in Sicily around 456 BC. The legend that he was killed by a tortoise dropped on his bald head by an eagle is probably too good to be true.

Works (7)

  • 1
    Agamemnon
    drama

    Agamemnon returns from Troy in triumph. His wife Clytemnestra has been waiting ten years — not to welcome him, but to kill him. The opening play of th...

    15 acts
    1,037 lines
  • 2
    Eumenides
    prose

    Orestes is pursued by the Furies for killing his mother. Athena puts him on trial in Athens. The jury is split. The goddess casts the deciding vote. V...

    12 books
    1,041 lines
  • 3
    Libation Bearers
    prose

    Orestes returns to Argos to avenge his father by killing his mother. Electra recognises him at Agamemnon's tomb. The murder is deliberate, commanded b...

    11 books
    1,075 lines
  • 4
    Persians
    history

    The earliest surviving tragedy. Xerxes' mother waits for news of the Persian invasion of Greece. A messenger arrives from Salamis. What follows is the...

    14 books
    797 lines
  • 5
    Prometheus Bound
    prose

    Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to humanity. Zeus had him chained to a rock in the Caucasus. He does not repent. The oldest drama abou...

    11 books
    616 lines
  • 6
    Seven Against Thebes
    oratory

    Two brothers fight over who will rule Thebes. Both sides know the prophecy: they will kill each other. The curse of Oedipus falls on the next generati...

    17 books
    729 lines
  • 7
    Supplices
    drama

    Fifty sisters flee forced marriage to their cousins and seek asylum in Argos. The city must decide: protect the suppliants and face war, or hand them...

    18 acts
    546 lines

Lost & Fragmentary Works

  • Lost Plays
    Tragedy

    Aeschylus wrote between 70 and 90 plays, of which only 7 survive complete. The lost plays include the remaining parts of several trilogies and many independent tragedies and satyr plays.

    Originally: ~80 plays. Surviving: 7 complete plays; fragments and titles of the rest.

    Radt, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, vol. III (Göttingen, 1985)

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