Playwrights / Dramatists - 02 - Aeschylus (525-490 B. C.)

Aeschylus the great Athenian tragic dramatist was born at Eleusis, Athens, in 525 B. C. His father was Euphorian, a member of a family of nobles.

In 490 B. C. he participated in the battle of Marathon against the Persians, where his brother lost his life. As he wrote later, this participation was the ‘greatest moment in his life.’

In 480 B. C., he took part in the great battle of Salamis, and he and his countrymen defeated the Persians again. Some scholars say he had fought at Platea and Thrace too, against the invading Persians.

Aeschylus began to write in his youth. His first presentation was made in the year 499 B. C. He entered the annual Athenian competition of tragic drama more than 20 times, and won first prize 13 times. For the first time he won the 1st prize in 484 B. C., and from that time forward was recognized as a leading dramatist.

Aeschylus has been called ‘The Father of Greek Drama’ and the first tragedian. He added a second actor to the drama that consisted only of a chorus and one actor.

He also designed costumes for his actors, introduced stage settings, and stage machinery and drilled his choruses in their songs. Further he took part in his own dramas.

His addition of a second actor completely changed the shape of the structure of the drama of his day. His techniques and the language of surpassing beauty have kept his work alive up to this day, nearly 2500 years.

Aeschylus wrote approximately 90 plays. The titles of 82 are known and seven survive entirely, and others are known from papyrus fragments and quotations in later writings only.

‘The Suppliant Maidens’ (a play based on an Egyptian story), ‘The Makers of the Bride’s Bed’, ‘The Persians’, ‘Laius’, ‘Oedipus’, ‘Seven Against Thebes’ the Theban Trilogy. ‘Prometheus Unbound’, ‘Prometheus the Fire Bearer’ and the Orestean trilogy ‘Agamemnon’, ‘Choephoroe’ and ‘Eumenides’ are his surviving plays. Aeschylus won the first prize in 467 BC for his Theban Trilogy. He won his last prize for the great ‘Orestean Trilogy’, the highest achievement of all Greek drama, in 458 B. C.

His plays were based on cycles of myths, or woven of unrelated myths and legends. Aeschylus seemed to see life as an exhilarating and terrible struggle against superior forces; a struggle that enevitably arises when a mighty will is aroused to action by intellect, emotion, and passion. The struggle, a noble one, causes suffering whence comes wisdom.

About 458 B. C. Aeschylus went to Sicily. In the same year he died there at Gela. The Gelans erected a splendid monument on the site where he was buried. Later a bronze statue of him was set at the theatre in Athens by the Athenians, in his honour.

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