Aeschylus

Introduction
Life and career
Dramatic and literary achievements
The plays
- Persians
- Seven Against Thebes
- Suppliants
- Oresteia
- Prometheus Bound

Quotes References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics

Images & Videos

Experience a choral passage from the tragedy Oresteia by Classical Greek playwright Aeschylus

At a Glance

Aeschylus summary

Quizzes

Portrait of Plato (ca. 428- ca. 348 BC), Ancient Greek philosopher.

An Odyssey of Grecian Literature

Related Questions

How did Aeschylus change Greek drama by adding a second actor?
How did Aeschylus influence later Western theatre and drama?
How did Aeschylus use stage scenery and machinery in Greek theatre?
How did a second actor increase dialogue and dramatic tension in Greek tragedy?
How does Aeschylus portray the relationship between human actions and divine justice?
How does Aeschylus use images of light and darkness in the Oresteia?
How does King Pelasgus respond to the Danaïds in Suppliants?
How does Persians explain the Persian defeat at the Battle of Salamis?
How does the Oresteia replace revenge with the rule of law?
How large were the choruses in Aeschylus’s tragedies?
How many complete tragedies by Aeschylus have survived?
How many plays did Aeschylus write?
What historical event does Aeschylus’s Persians portray?
What is unusual about Aeschylus’s reported death involving an eagle and a tortoise?
What kind of plays did Aeschylus present alongside his tragedies at dramatic festivals?
What role does Cassandra play in Agamemnon?
What themes of justice and revenge run through the Oresteia?
When did Aeschylus live?
When did Aeschylus win his first dramatic competition?
When was the Oresteia first performed?
Where did Aeschylus die?
Where was Aeschylus born?
Who defeated Aeschylus in the dramatic competition of 468 BCE?
Who was Aeschylus’s father?
Why do Eteocles and Polyneices fight each other in Seven Against Thebes?
Why do the Danaïds flee to Argos in Suppliants?
Why do the Furies become the Eumenides at the end of the Oresteia?
Why do the Furies pursue Orestes in the Oresteia?
Why does Clytemnestra murder Agamemnon in Agamemnon?
Why does Orestes kill Clytemnestra in Libation Bearers?
Why does Xerxes return humiliated at the end of Persians?
Why is Aeschylus called the Father of Tragedy?
Why is the authorship of Prometheus Bound debated by scholars?
What was Seneca’s family like?
What did Seneca write?
What were Seneca’s political accomplishments?
How did Seneca die?
Why is Federico García Lorca important?
What was Federico García Lorca’s childhood like?
How did Federico García Lorca die?
What was William Butler Yeats best known for?
What is William Butler Yeats’s most famous poem?
Whom did William Butler Yeats marry?

Literature Plays Playwrights A-K

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External Websites

Perseus Digital Library - A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology - Aeschylus
Theoi - Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Columbia College - The Core Curriculum - Aeschylus
Penn Arts and Sciences - Department of Classical Studies - Aeschylus
World History Encyclopedia - Aeschylus
Harvard University - The Center for Hellenic Studies - Aeschylus: Little Ugly One
Utah State University - Aeschylus
Classical Literature - Aeschylus ï¿½ Who Was Aeschylus? Tragedies,Plays,Facts,Death

Britannica Websites

Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.

Aeschylus - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)

Aeschylus

Greek dramatist

Written by

Oliver Taplin

Fellow and Tutor of Magdalen College, Oxford; Reader in Greek Literature, University of Oxford. Author of Greek Tragedy in Action and others.

Oliver TaplinAll

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Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

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History

Aeschylus (born 525/524 bc—died 456/455 bc, Gela, Sicily) was the first of classical Athens’ great dramatists, who raised the emerging art of tragedy to great heights of poetry and theatrical power. Aeschylus grew up in the turbulent period when the Athenian democracy, having thrown off its tyranny (the absolute rule of one man), had to prove itself against both self-seeking politicians at home and invaders from abroad. Aeschylus himself took part in his city’s first...

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