Talk:Aeschylus

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Even in our sleep, a pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart until, in our own despair, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.- Aeschylus (525–456 BC)

Robert Kennedy quoted these lines as he told an Indianapolis crowd of the assassination of Martin Luther King. Kennedy was himself assassinated a few months later. Does anyone know the text source?

It's from lines 179-80 of Agamemnon. Ifnkovhg (talk) 01:42, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] death

I read in a reliable source this guy was killed when an eagle, mistaking his head for a rock, dropped a tortoise on him.Eddisford 21:09, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copyediting?

This article is tagged for copyedit, but I read through it and it seems fine. Can someone double-check? Omgitsmonica 02:14, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Lots of run-on sentences, I guess. It would read more smoothly if they were split up. I didn't notice anything else. Weefz 00:17, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] comment header

That Aeschylus' plays end more happily than those of other playwrights is questionable. Of his six extant plays, only the Eumenides and possibly the Hiketides end happily. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.190.242.110 (talk • contribs) 22:11, 26 September 2003 (UTC).

Well, they end more happily than, say, Oedipus or Antigone, by Sophocles, in which most of the lead characters all die. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by RonoxQ (talk • contribs) 16:56, 30 October 2005 UTC).

I would also question the assertion that Aeschylus didn't write Prometheus Bound. Some mention should be made of the theory that he wrote it at the end of his life, in Gela. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.18.48.75 (talk • contribs) 22:04, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

Well, no one person is sure of what happened. However, there has been analytical work proving that the style of writing didn't come close to matching that of Aeschylus. —Preceding unsigned comment added by RonoxQ (talk • contribs) 16:56, 30 October 2005 UTC)
That analytical work is also questionable; the vocabulary is most certainly Aeschylean. It is to be granted that it is not as rich in metaphor as, say, Seven Against Thebes, but I'm not so sure that the "majority" of scholars would say it wasn't written by Aeschylus. It is true that at least some of the choruses are questionable, though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nolewr (talk • contribs) 05:46, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] the bird/eagle..

why did the eagle drop the turtle on Aeschylus' head?? What did has it mistaken his head with? an egg?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.7.38.143 (talk • contribs) 05:55, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

No, it mistook his head for a rock. Birds drop turtles on rocks to crack open their shells, but in this case it was Aeschylus's head that cracked.
However, I doubt it was an eagle, as eagles are one of the few birds strong enough to pry a turtle out without a rock to help. 16:53, 30 —Preceding unsigned comment added by RonoxQ (talk • contribs) October 2005 (UTC)
Article surely ought to make some mention of this. Drutt 07:54, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prometheus Shrine

Outside the GE building in Rockefeller center is a sculpture of Prometheus with a quote from Aeschylus inscribed. Anyone know what this quote is? --Atlastawake 16:35, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Well you can read most of the inscription on this photo. And a bit of net searching shows that the full (translated) quote from Aeschylus is:
Prometheus, teacher in every art, brought the fire
that hath proved to mortals a means to mighty ends
Sorry, a bit of a slow response. But better late than never... -- Solipsist 10:56, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Aeschylus Fragment?

I'd like to discuss where the proof is for the claim that some lost Aeschylus was found in the wrappings of a mummy. I recently saw Peter Meineck, a translator of Aeschylus and a ancient Greek scholar, and asked him about this claim. He firmly denied it, saying that this is a rumor that has been going around for years. He confirmed that some lost Sophocles had been found, but no Aeschylus. 149.152.191.253 16:00, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The Aeschylus fragments part (and the entire article on the Achilleis play) should be supported by storng references. The only source of information I found on this subject were fishy press releases. It was probably all a marketing stunt to promote a new play based on the few fragments that remain... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.137.215.182 (talk • contribs) 09:58, 30 April 2006 (UTC)
I removed the section about the new fragments. Two recent fragments of Achilles plays have turned up that I know of; Trag.adesp. 640b in the addenda section to Kannichts TrG vol. 5 (2004), and one attributed to Sophocles (jr?), PAshm. Inv 89B (DAGM nr. 5, maybe also in Kannicht, which I do not have at hand right now). If new Aeschylus had been found in the early nineties it would have been introduced in the supplements to TrGF vol. 5 or vol. 4, ed. 2 (1999).

[edit] Further edits

I also removed the dating of the Prometheus to the fourth century; discussions generally talk about late fifth century.--Petrus Olaus 07:23, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I corrected the epitaph in the Biography section, and added a version with breathing signs and polytonic accents. Also added reference, and changed certain Aeschylean authorship to possible.--Petrus Olaus 17:50, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I removed the ref. to Cratinus; the problem about this possible allusion is too complicated for a dictionary article. It has been suggested that Cratinus parodied not the Pr.Vinctus but the Prometheus liberatus, a drama of which a few fragments attributed to Aeschylus have been preserved (TrGF vol 3, frr. 190-204). However, the relation of the Liberatus to the preserved Pr.Vinctus is uncertain. Liberatus may in fact be genuine; there are some indications that it may be older than 467 B.C.

Source: Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, vol. 3, Aeschylus (ed. S. L. Radt, Göttingen 1985) p. 307.--Petrus Olaus 19:40, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

I am a classicist specializing in Aeschylus who is "between jobs" and thus has some time to kill. As a consequence:

1. I removed the reference to the tragic competitions at the Lenaia, because they are irrelevant to Aeschylus' career. He died in 456, and tragic competitions did not become part of the Lenaia until ca. 440's-430's.

2. I removed the reference to the Lammergeier, as it lends credibility to the surely apocryphal "death by eagle" legend.

3. In the "Works" section, I elaborated on Aeschylus' significant tendency (not shared by Sophocles or Euripides) to write connected trilogies, providing a brief catalogue of lost trilogies sugested by known play titles. In the Seven against Thebes, Suppliants and Prometheus Bound subsections, I likewise elaborated on the trilogies to which the respective plays have been argued to belong.

4. I altered the Prometheus Bound section to reflect that (while I still hold out hope) confidence in Aeschylean authorship has steadily eroded. I need to get to a university library to collect references from Sommerstein, West, et al., but n. 14 must take Griffith 1983 out of context. Though Griffith remains admirably restrained in his commentary, by 1977 he had argued against authenticity, and some pretty big names have followed suit.

5. I removed the following sentence from the "Influence" section: "Scholars assume that the weighty themes of his plays were intended to inspire thought and conversation among Athenian audiences, but almost no sources exist that describe how audiences engaged intellectually with Greek theater." This is patently false. In The Frogs, for example, Aristophanes explicitly credits Aeschylus with educating the Athenian polis. Moreover, the last 15 years have seen an avalanche of scholarship detailing the interaction between Greek tragedy and contemporary history and society. Off the top of my head, see: Nothing to Do with Dionysos?, eds. J.J. Winkler and F. Zeitlin 1992; History, Tragedy, Theory, ed. Barbara Goff 1995; Greek Tragedy and the Historian, ed. C. Pelling 1997. I also added the possibility that Aeschylus introduced scene-painting to Greek tragedy. The "Influence" section still seems thin to me. [ Ifnkovhg 22:58, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

6. I made some changes to the "life" section: Athens faced Persia alone at Marathon, and the Delian League had not yet been created; Pausanias was not Aeschylus' friend, as he was born hundreds of years later. I also made some additions to the "influence" section. Ifnkovhg 06:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cultural depictions of Aeschylus

I've started an approach that may apply to Wikipedia's Core Biography articles: creating a branching list page based on in popular culture information. I started that last year while I raised Joan of Arc to featured article when I created Cultural depictions of Joan of Arc, which has become a featured list. Recently I also created Cultural depictions of Alexander the Great out of material that had been deleted from the biography article. Since cultural references sometimes get deleted without discussion, I'd like to suggest this as a model for the editors here. Regards, Durova 16:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification

"the tyrant of Gela" - the Gela article mentions multiple "rulers", but without an exact year to work off, this is difficult. The only one mentioned as a "tyrant" appears to have been a generation before Aeschylus was likely to travel there. Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 22:01, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Prometheus Bound

Just from a quick browse, it appears that this article says that the Prometheus Bound is not by Aeschylus. This is questionable; the introduction to Griffith's recent edition says "Most modern scholars have seen no good reason to doubt the traditional ascritpion, though opinions as to date have varied." (Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound, ed. Mark Griffith, Cambridge, 1983, p. 32.) I think the article should simply note that the authenticity of the play is disputed, and give details at Prometheus Bound. --Akhilleus (talk) 22:08, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Hopefully this will not irritate anyone, but I've changed what the article says about Prometheus, including the bit in the lede which said that six plays survived--it now says "Unfortunately, only seven of an estimated 70 plays by Aeschylus have survived into modern times; one of these plays, the Prometheus Bound, is sometimes thought not to be the work of Aeschylus." The reason for this is that the majority opinion of classical scholars is that the PB is usually thought to be authentic. If you were taking a Greek Lit exam, you'd want to say that we have seven Aeschylus plays--but you'd want to follow that immediately by saying that maybe the PB isn't by Aeschylus. It's worth noting that Griffith wrote a book arguing that the PB wasn't by Aeschylus (M. Griffith, The Authenticity of Prometheus Bound, Cambridge 1977), but still said in his 1983 commentary that most scholars consider the play as a work of Aeschylus--a good indication of the majority opinion. T.K. Hubbard, "Recitative Anapests and the Authenticity of Prometheus Bound", The American Journal of Philology, 112 (1991), pp. 439-460 argues for the play's authenticity and rebuts some of Griffith's arguments, and I believe the Oxford Classical Dictionary entry on Aeschylus reflects current consensus when it says "Seven plays have survived via medieval manuscripts, of which Prometheus Bound is of disputed authenticity..." (entry on Aeschylus, p. 27).

The arguments for and against authenticity are fairly interesting, and might be worth covering in detail, but the place for that is probably Prometheus Bound. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:42, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Good article

This article was nominated as a Good Article Candidate. It meets all requirements—well done! Further improvement might include more detail on the contents of his plays. I have also added some wikilinks to relevant unlinked terms. A mild copyedit would help improve sentences like "However, the glory was tempered for Aeschylus personally when his brother was killed in the battle." –Outriggr § 05:01, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Harry Potter

I've removed a reference to Harry Potter. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter books, quoted a brief part of the Libation Bearers in an epigraph to the final Harry Potter novel. This doesn't merit an entry here. Many authors have referred to the work in far more significant ways. --Tony Sidaway 22:57, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I Am a Cat

In the third volume of I Am a Cat, the Cat tells the story of Aeschylus's death. Shouldn't this be mentioned? 瀬人様 17:33, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Not in this article. --Akhilleus (talk) 18:04, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This Lammergeier nonsense must stop.

The story of Aeschylus' death from above by rock or turtle is unquestionably apocryphal. Weird deaths were similarly ascribed to (e.g.) Homer, and the philosopher Chrysippus. It is a literary trope, and to be given no weight. The Lammergeier stuff seems (to me) to lend credence to the story, which is a mistake. Ifnkovhg 08:32, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that mention of Lammergeier habits is relevant. It "gives credence", not to the death of Aeschylus in particular, but at least to the possibility of death by this means. If it is omitted, the reputed death seems a wholly random event, far too unlikely to be plausible, like being hit by a meteorite. However, if it is included it allows a more balanced judgement to be made about whether it might apply to him, or indeed to anyone else.
In any case, however unlikely or implausible the reputed death, it's hard to see how an article about Aeschylus could omit the widely-told story altogether – and if that is included, the Lammergeier habit should certainly be too. If you feel that the story itself lacks credence, I suggest you find a reference for that, and put in a new section about it, discussing it from both sides.
Finally, how can something be "unquestionably apocryphal"? For all we know, philosophers and writers in Ancient Greece were going down like ninepins to passing Lammergeiers. We can be sceptical about a story told about several different people, but it is risky to say that it must therefore not have occurred to any of them. And if it is indeed a "literary trope" (personally I think so), is that not interesting in itself?--Richard New Forest 09:41, 12 November 2007 (UTC)


Richard, I see your point. I don't object to the story about Aeschylus' death, but the way in which it is presented. I think my objection lies chiefly with the wording. "This may not be as unlikely as it seems..." This formulation smacks of advocacy. I would prefer something more neutral, such as "This story was perhaps inspired by..." or words to that effect.

I also object to the Lammergeier reference for its specificity. Such a method for eating tortoises is equally true of (e.g.) the golden eagle; Aesop attributes this act to a generic eagle in one of his fables. Thus I find trying to identify the species of eagle that killed Aeschylus is rather like trying to determine Capt. Kirk's blood type, because...

This story is to be taken with a huge grain of salt. "Unquestionably apocryphal" may be a tad strong, but just barely. Where the historical record is silent, the invention of improbable, tragicomic deaths for famous people appears to be the norm in antiquity. To those I've already cited, we may add Hesiod, Pythagoras and Archimedes. I'm sure there are others. Given the tendency in historiography to ascribe outlandish deaths to famous figures, and given the astronomical odds of such a death (while not impossible) occurring ever, much less to Aeschylus, I think we can safely call this an urban legend. Absolute certainty is, of course, impossible. But c'mon. There's no way this happened to Aeschylus. I've read a fair amount of Aeschylean scholarship, and I can't recall a single academic who gives any weight to this story.

How do y'all like my soapbox?Ifnkovhg 05:39, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the point about the Lammergeier is that smashing bones and tortoises is its usual habit. Other birds do it (not heard of Golden Eagle, but certainly crows and gulls), but it is the only one I'm aware of which does it habitually with objects big enough to kill a playwright. I think "invention" is not quite right. Is it not the case that these stories served to illustrate a general belief in fate – giving a character an appropriately ironic death? If so, the story told about a particular figure becomes highly relevant, whether true or not.--Richard New Forest 09:01, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Made a Septem edit.

I deleted the following, because it's almost entirely wrong:


"She defies the order of the new king, Creon, banning anyone from burying Polynices. In response, Creon sentences her to be buried alive, and Antigone commits suicide just before Creon is persuaded to rescind his order. The remainder of the play is an orgy of deaths. Creon is killed by his son, Haemon, who was betrothed to Antigone and who immediately afterwards kills himself. Then Eurydice, Creon's wife, kills herself in mourning. This ending entirely mirrors the plot of Antigone."


Creon, Haemon and Eurydice are NOT characters in the Septem. Not even in the spurious ending that features Antigone. These characters' actions that the author describes "entirely mirror[ing]" Antigone's plot is also off. In Sophocles' play, Eurydice does kill herself after Haemon killed himself. Haemon tried to kill Creon, but failed. Creon is alive at the end of Antigone. The entirety of the spurious ending is simply this: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers; a messenger announces the prohibtion against burying Polyneices; and Antigone announces her intention to defy that edict. This new ending was likely written to turn Aeschylus' Septem into a prequel of sorts to Sophocles' Antigone.Ifnkovhg 01:04, 15 November 2007 (UTC)