Quotations
Reverence for parents stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.
l. 707
Death is better, a milder fate than tyranny.
Variant: Death is softer by far than tyranny., l. 1364
Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.
l. 103
For a deadly blow let him pay with a deadly blow; it is for him who has done a deed to suffer.
l. 312
For it would be better to die once and for all than to suffer pain for all one's life.
line 750
For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.
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Encyclopedia
Aeschylus was a playwright of
ancient Greece.
Aeschylus was the earliest of the three greatest Greek tragedians, the others being
Sophocles and
Euripides.
Biography
Born at Eleusis in western Attica, he wrote his first plays in 498 BC, but his earliest surviving
play is probably
The Persians is a tragedy [i] by the ancient Greek [i] playwright Aeschylus [i]. ...
, performed in 472 BC. In 490 BC, he participated in the
Battle of Marathon, and in 480 BC he fought at the
Battle of Salamis. Salamis was the subject of
The Persians is a tragedy [i] by the ancient Greek [i] playwright Aeschylus [i]. ...
, written eight years later; it is now generally accepted that
The Suppliants, once thought to be Aeschylus's earliest surviving tragedy, and so the earliest complete Attic tragedy to survive, was written in the last decade of his life, making
The Persians his earliest
play.
P.W. Buckham writes that Aeschylus was considered philosophically a
Pythagorean and this was evidenced in some of his works. He also writes, quoting August Wilhelm von Schlegel, that Aeschylus was the inventor of tragedy.
Aeschylus frequently travelled to
Sicily, where the
tyrant of
Gela was a patron. In 458 BC he travelled there for the last time; according to traditional legend, Aeschylus was killed in 456 BC when an
eagle , mistaking the playwright's bald crown for a stone, dropped a tortoise on his head .
The inscription on his gravestone may have been written by himself, but makes no mention of his
theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements. It read:
- 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
In Greek:
- .
Works
Aeschylus' work has a strong moral and religious emphasis, concentrating on man's position in the cosmos in relation to the gods, divine law and divine punishment in the
Oresteia trilogy. Besides the literary merit of his work, Aeschylus' greatest contribution to the theater was the addition of a second actor to his scenes. Previously, the action took place between a single actor and the Greek chorus. This invention was attributed to him by Aristotle.
Aeschylus is known to have written about 76 plays, only 6 of which survive:
- The Persians is a tragedy [i] by the ancient Greek [i] playwright Aeschylus [i]. ...
- Seven Against Thebes is a play by Aeschylus [i] concerning the battle between Eteocles [i] and the a ...
- The Suppliants
- Oresteia
In addition, the existing canon of Aeschylus' plays includes a seventh,
Prometheus Bound is an Ancient Greek play [i]. ...
. Attributed to Aeschylus in
antiquity, it is generally considered by modern scholars to be the work of an unknown playwright. One theory is that it was written by Euphorion, one of Aeschylus' sons, and produced as his father's work. Its language is much simpler than that which Aeschylus usually utilises, without nearly as much complex metaphor and imagery, and is closer to Sophocles' style ; its hostility to the figure of
Zeus is completely at odds with the religious views of the other six plays. We know it must have been written before 429 BC, as Cratinus makes reference to this play in his own
The Wealth Gods.
See also
Notes
P.W. Buckham, p.120, "
In philosophical sentiments Aeschylus is said to have been a Pythagorean". cf. Cicero, Tusc. Disp., ii.9, "
Veniat Aeschylus, non poeta solum, sed etiam Pythagoreus; sic eniam accepimus" -- "Let us see what Aeschylus says, who was not only a poet but a Pythagorean philosopher also, for that is the account which you have received of him ..." Book II.10.
P.W. Buckham, p.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 panoplyshe 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.
"
References
- Buckham, Philip Wentworth,
Theatre of the Greeks
, 1827.Cicero, Tusculanae Quaestiones
.Pickard-Cambridge, Sir Arthur WallaceDithyramb, Tragedy, and Comedy
, 1927.The Theatre of Dionysus in Athens
, 1946.The Dramatic Festivals of Athens
, 1953.Schlegel, August Wilhelm, Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature
, 1809. Sommerstein, Alan H., Greek Drama and Dramatists
, Routledge, 2002Sourvinou-Inwood, Christiane, Tragedy and Athenian Religion
, Oxford University Press, 2003.Wiles, David, The Masked Menander: Sign and Meaning in Greek and Roman Performance, 1991.
External links
- *Available by .pdf file at Textkit:
Fragments
Prometheus Bound
