Athens In The Wake Of Their Defeat Of Persia

Athens In The Wake Of Their Defeat Of Persia

Aeschylus was born about 525 BC. At the beginning of the fifth century BC Athens' Dionysian festival became more organized, and Aeschylus began presenting tragedies in 499 BC along with Thespis, Pratinas, Choerilus, and Phrynichus, who was fined for reminding Athenians of their grief for the defeat by the Persians in The Capture of Miletus. Aeschylus, who is credited with introducing a second actor and making the dialog more important than the chorus, did not win first prize until 484 BC. The earliest of his seven extant plays, The Persians, was produced by Pericles in 472 BC and did win, as it reminded the Athenians of their glorious triumph over the Persians at Salamis in 480 BC. Aeschylus was so proud of having fought the Persians at Marathon that his epitaph mentioned this but nothing about his writing more than seventy plays and winning first prize thirteen times. The Dionysian prize was given for a cycle of three tragedies and a satyr play; so he won much of the time. Aeschylus was accused of revealing the Eleusinian Mysteries, but he was acquitted. Like the poets Simonides, Pindar, and Bacchylides, Aeschylus often visited Sicily as a guest of the tyrant Hieron at Gela, where he died in 456 BC.

The Persians is a most unusual Greek tragedy, because it is the only one extant that portrays a recent historical event; also as the title suggests, none of the characters are Greek. The scene is the palace at the Persian capital in Susa, where a chorus of elders waits for news from the Persians' second major invasion of Greece led by their king Xerxes. Although the Persians are presented sympathetically, the Greek viewpoint of the author and audience is still clear, since the Persian leaders are described as "slaves of the greatest of kings."1 They regret that the flower of her men is gone. The royal army that destroys cities has crossed from Asia to Europe over a bridge of ships that yoked the neck of the sea. The brave Persians under their leader, whom they consider equal to god, are accustomed to waging and winning wars. Yet the Aeschylean chorus asks how mortals may avoid the deception of god who leads astray. They note how the Persian women weep in their soft beds.

The Queen, consort of the late Darius and mother of Xerxes, fears that wealth may court contempt while indigence quenches ambition's flame. Her son has gone to pillage Greece, but the chorus reminds her the Greeks are slaves to none and were able to defeat the army of Darius. A herald arrives with news that at a single stroke prosperity is corrupted, and the flower of Persia has fallen; they were defeated in the naval charge at Salamis, though Xerxes lives. With the help of the gods the Greeks with 310 ships had overcome the Persians 1207 ...