Aeschylus - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Overview

Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...

and Euripides

Euripides

Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...

, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos (αἶσχος), meaning "shame". According to Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

, he expanded the number of characters in plays to allow for conflict amongst them; previously, characters interacted only with the chorus

Greek chorus

A Greek chorus is a homogenous, non-individualised group of performers in the plays of classical Greece, who comment with a collective voice on the dramatic action....

. 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.

At least one of Aeschylus's works was influenced by the Persian invasion of Greece, which took place during his lifetime.

Unanswered Questions

Why was he so important to the greeks in the fifth century BCE?

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Quotations

His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.

Variant: To be rather than to seem.

Success is man’s god.

Choephoræ, 59, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

So in the Libyan fable it is toldThat once an eagle, stricken with a dart,Said, when he saw the fashion of the shaft,"With our own feathers, not by others' hands,Are we now smitten."

Frag. 135 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts:Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering pouredAvails; no altars hath he, nor is soothedBy hymns of praise. From him alone of allThe powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.

Frag. 146 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

O Death the Healer, scorn thou not, I pray,To come to me: of cureless ills thou artThe one physician. Pain lays not its touchUpon a corpse.

Frag. 250 (trans. by Plumptre), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

A prosperous fool is a grievous burden.

Frag. 383, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Bronze is the mirror of the form; wine, of the heart.

Frag. 384, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.

Frag. 385, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

I would far rather be ignorant than knowledgeable of evil.

l. 453. Compare: "where ignorance is bliss, ’T is folly to be wise", Thomas Gray, On a Distant Prospect of Eton College, Stanza 10.

"Reverence for parents" stands written among the three laws of most revered righteousness.

l. 707. Alternately reported with "Honour thy father and thy mother" in place of "Reverence for parents", in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

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