This article is about the ancient Greek playwright. For other uses, see Aeschylus (disambiguation).
Aeschylus
Αἰσχύλος
Roman marble herma of Aeschylus dating to c. 30 BC, based on an earlier bronze Greek herma, dating to around 340-320 BC
Born
c. 525/524 BC
Eleusis
Died
c. 456 BC (aged approximately 67)
Gela, Sicily
Occupation(s)
Playwright and soldier
Children
Euphorion
Euaeon
Parent
Euphorion (father)
Relatives
Cynaegirus (brother)
Ameinias (brother)
Philopatho (sister)
Philocles (nephew)
Aeschylus (UK: /ˈiːskɪləs/,[1]US: /ˈɛskɪləs/;[2] Greek: ΑἰσχύλοςAiskhýlos; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian often described as the father of tragedy.[3][4] Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work,[5] and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays.[6] According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.[nb 1]
Only seven of Aeschylus's estimated 70 to 90 plays have survived. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them, Prometheus Bound, with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion. Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri. These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work.[7] He was likely the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy. His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example.[8] At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians, is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant.[9] The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and the Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright.[10]
^Jones, Daniel; Roach, Peter, James Hartman and Jane Setter, eds. Cambridge English Pronouncing Dictionary. 17th edition. Cambridge UP, 2006.
^"Aeschylus". Webster's New World College Dictionary.
^Freeman 1999, p. 243
^Schlegel, August Wilhelm von (December 2004). Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature. p. 121.
^R. Lattimore, Aeschylus I: Oresteia, 4
^Martin Cropp, 'Lost Tragedies: A Survey'; A Companion to Greek Tragedy, p. 273
^P. Levi, Greek Drama, 159
^S. Saïd, Aeschylean Tragedy, 215
^S. Saïd, Aeschylean Tragedy, 221
^"Pausanias, Description of Greece, *)attika/, chapter 14, section 5". www.perseus.tufts.edu. Retrieved 18 January 2024.
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tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge...
(Ancient Greek: Ὀρέστεια) is a trilogy of Greek tragedies written by Aeschylus in the 5th century BCE, concerning the murder of Agamemnon by Clytemnestra...
religiosity. So, for instance, in Aeschylus, Zeus always has the role of ethical thinking and action. Musically Aeschylus remains tied to the nomoi, rhythmic...
era of greater Athens were Aeschylus and Plato. The two men wrote in highly distinctive forms of expression which for Aeschylus centered on his mastery of...
"Here we have another reference to Erinus (Fh 390)..." Aeschylus, Libation Beaers 1048 Aeschylus Eumenides 34-59 Euripides [Orestes (play)|Orestes] 317;...
win her love by means of the gift of seeing the future. According to Aeschylus, she promised him her favours, but after receiving the gift, she went...
of Aeschylus' work, meaning that he went through a phase of imitating Aeschylus' style but is finished with that. Sophocles' opinion of Aeschylus was...
answers while Aeschylus provides more practical advice, and Dionysus decides to take Aeschylus back instead of Euripides. Pluto allows Aeschylus to return...
plays by Aeschylus, Alfieri, Voltaire, Hofmannsthal, and Eugene O'Neill. She is a vengeful soul in The Libation Bearers, the second play of Aeschylus' Oresteia...
(c. 480 – c. 406 BC) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom...
Moirai are instead called the offspring of Nyx (Night). Aeschylus, The Eumenides in Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph....
and classical periods of Greek literature, particularly in the works of Aeschylus, Aeschines and Plato. The nature of the relationship between Achilles...
Salamis. Given Aeschylus' propensity for writing connected trilogies, the theme of divine retribution may connect the three. Aeschylus himself had fought...
Coeliades aeschylus, the Senegal blue policeman, is a butterfly of the family Hesperiidae. It is found in Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Guinea...
romanized: Promētheús Desmṓtēs) is an ancient Greek tragedy traditionally attributed to Aeschylus and thought to have been composed sometime between 479 BC and the terminus...
Odyssey 11.385–465 Archived 2022-03-19 at the Wayback Machine. Aeschylus, Agamemnon in Aeschylus, with an English translation by Herbert Weir Smyth, Ph. D...
simply one actor, the protagonist, and a chorus of dancers. The playwright Aeschylus introduced the deuteragonist; Aristotle says in his Poetics: Καὶ τό τε...
Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and the half-sister of Helen of Troy. In Aeschylus' Oresteia, she murders Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second...
Aeschylus (Ancient Greek: Αισχύλος) of Rhodes was appointed by Alexander the Great one of the inspectors of the governors of that country after its conquest...
Aeschylus of Alexandria (Greek Αισχύλος ὁ Ἀλεξανδρεύς) was an epic poet who must have lived before the end of the 2nd century, and whom Athenaeus calls...
and Strophius. The story of Orestes was the subject of the Oresteia of Aeschylus (Agamemnon, Choephori, Eumenides), of the Electra of Sophocles, and of...
fragments by several ancient Greek poets including Homer, Hesiod, Pindar, Aeschylus and Euripides. However, the most popular version of the legend comes from...
Eris, Androktasia (Manslaughter), and Ker (Fate), see Most, pp. 12–15. Aeschylus, Libation Bearers 802 ff. means that murder breeds murderous reprisal...
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