Aeschylus facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Aeschylus
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Aeschylus
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| Born | c. 525 BC Eleusis, Greece |
| Died | c. 456 BC Gela |
| Occupation | Playwright; soldier |
| Nationality | Greek |
| Period | Ancient Greece |
| Genre | Tragedy |
| Subject | Greek life and history |
| Notable works | The Persians |
| Notable awards | Won at the Great Dionysia 13 times. |
| Children | Euphorion and Euæon |
| Relatives | Philocles (nephew) |
Aeschylus (born around 525 BC – died around 456 BC) was a very important Ancient Greek poet and writer. He is known as the earliest of the three greatest Greek writers of tragedies. The other two were Sophocles and Euripides.
Aeschylus wrote about 70 to 90 plays. However, only six of his sad plays, called tragedies, have survived completely.
The ancient Greek thinker Aristotle said that Aeschylus changed plays by adding more characters. His characters could talk to each other, not just to the chorus. This made it easier to create exciting drama between the characters on stage.
One of his most famous plays is The Persians. It tells the story of the Persian invasion of Greece. Aeschylus himself fought in this war. Because of this, people who study Greek history use his play as a key source of information. The war was so important to the Greeks and to Aeschylus that his grave only mentions his part in the Greek victory at the Battle of Marathon. It doesn't even talk about the plays he wrote!
Contents
Early Life of Aeschylus
Aeschylus was born around 525 BC in a small town called Eleusis. This town was about 27 kilometers northwest of Athens. We know his birth year because it's about 40 years before he won his first big award at the Great Dionysia.
His family was wealthy. His father, Euphorion, was part of the Eupatridae, which was an old noble family in Attica. A writer named Pausanias wrote a story about Aeschylus. He said Aeschylus worked in a vineyard until the god Dionysus visited him in a dream. The god supposedly told him to start writing tragedies. Aeschylus' first play was performed in 499 BC when he was just 26 years old.
Aeschylus and the Persian Wars
In 490 BC, the Persian army, led by King Darius, landed in Greece. They wanted to conquer the land. Aeschylus and his brother, Cynegeirus, joined the army from Athens. They fought against the Persians at the famous Battle of Marathon. The Athenians, even though they were outnumbered, managed to defeat the large Persian army. This victory, which stopped Darius, was celebrated all over Greece. Sadly, Cynegeirus died in this battle.
Ten years later, in 480 BC, Xerxes I of Persia tried again to capture Greece. Aeschylus fought against them in two more important battles: the Battle of Salamis and the Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. His oldest play that still exists, The Persians, was performed in 472 BC. It is set during the Battle of Salamis and won first prize at the Dionysia festival.
The Eleusinian Mysteries
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who joined the Eleusinian Mysteries. This was a special religious group dedicated to Demeter, the goddess of harvest. The group was based in his hometown of Eleusis. Members learned secret knowledge and promised not to tell anyone about the Mysteries.
Aristotle wrote that some people believed Aeschylus might have accidentally shown some of the group's secrets on stage in his plays. Other writers said that an angry crowd tried to attack Aeschylus on the spot. He managed to escape. Later, Aeschylus said he didn't know he had revealed any secrets. He was saved from punishment only because he had fought bravely in the Persian Wars.
Aeschylus' Later Life and Death
Aeschylus traveled to Sicily twice in the 470s BC. He was invited by Hieron, the ruler of Syracuse, a large Greek city on the island. During one of these trips, he wrote a play called The Women of Aetna to honor a city founded by Hieron. He also put on his play The Persians again there.
By 473 BC, Aeschylus was very popular at the Dionysia festival. He won first prize in almost every competition. In 458 BC, he went back to Sicily for the last time. He visited the city of Gela, where he died in 456 or 455 BC. There's a famous story, probably just a legend, that he died when a tortoise fell on his head. The story says an eagle dropped it from the sky!
Aeschylus' plays were so respected by the Athenians that after his death, his were the only tragedies allowed to be performed again in future competitions. His sons, Euphorion and Euæon, and his nephew Philocles, also became playwrights.
Aeschylus' Famous Plays
Greek drama started with festivals honoring the gods, especially Dionysus, the god of wine. During Aeschylus' time, play competitions became a big part of the city's Dionysia festival in the spring. The festival began with a parade, then a singing competition, and finally two play competitions.
In the first competition, three playwrights each presented three sad plays, followed by a short comedy. A second competition for five comedy writers followed. Judges then chose the winners of both competitions.
Aeschylus took part in many of these competitions. Only six of his tragedies have survived completely:
- The Persians (Persai) (472 BC)
- Seven against Thebes (Hepta epi Thebas) (467 BC)
- The Suppliants (Hiketides) (around 463 BC)
- The The Oresteia trilogy (a series of three plays) (458 BC)
- Agamemnon
- The Libation Bearers (Choephoroi)
- The Eumenides
There is also a play called Prometheus Bound, but many experts think it was written by someone else. All of the plays that have survived won first prize at the City Dionysia. One ancient book says that Aeschylus won first prize at the City Dionysia 13 times. To compare, Sophocles won 18 times out of 120 plays, and Euripides only won five times out of about 90 plays.
Aeschylus' Impact on Greek Theatre
When Aeschylus started writing, theatre was quite new. Some early playwrights had added an actor who could talk to the chorus. Aeschylus took this a step further by adding a second actor. This allowed for much more exciting drama between characters, and the chorus became less central to the story.
He is also thought to be the first to use skenographia, which means scene-decoration. Aeschylus also paid attention to costumes. He had his actors wear special platform boots called cothurni. These boots made the actors taller, helping the audience see them better.
There's a story that when the chorus of Furies appeared in the first performance of his play The Eumenides, they looked so scary that some young children fainted!
His plays followed the strict rules of Greek drama. They were written in verse, and no violence was shown directly on stage. The plays were often set away from everyday life in Athens. They told stories about the gods or were set in faraway places, like The Persians. Aeschylus' work often focused on strong moral and religious ideas. For example, the Oresteia plays explored how humans relate to the gods, divine laws, and divine punishment.
About 50 years after Aeschylus died, the comedy writer Aristophanes praised him in his play The Frogs. In that play, Aeschylus is a character who says his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike." He also says that with The Persians, he "taught the Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." He believed his plays helped Athenians be brave and good.
See also
In Spanish: Esquilo para niños
Images for kids
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Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore of Eleusis, Aeschylus' hometown. This was the center for the Eleusinian Mysteries.
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The death of Aeschylus, as imagined in the 15th-century Florentine Picture Chronicle by Maso Finiguerra.
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A modern photo of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens. Many of Aeschylus's plays were performed here.
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The Ghost of Darius Appearing to Atossa, a drawing by George Romney.
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A miniature painting by Robinet Testard showing the Danaids murdering their husbands.
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Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan by Dirck van Baburen (1623).
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