As soon as he woke from the dream, the young Aeschylus began writing a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was only 26 years old. His family was both wealthy and well-established his father Euphorion was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica.Īs a youth, he worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. 525 in Eleusis, a small town about 27 kilometers northwest of Athens, which is nestled in the fertile valleys of western Attica, though the date is most likely based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia.

There are no reliable sources for the life of Aeschylus. The war was so important to Greeks and to Aeschylus himself that, upon his death around 456 BC, his epitaph included a reference to his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon but not to his success as a playwright. His play The Persians remains a good primary source of information about this period in Greek history. Unfortunately, only seven of an estimated 70 plays by Aeschylus have survived into modern times one of these plays, Prometheus Bound, is sometimes thought not to be the work of Aeschylus.Īt least one of Aeschylus's works was influenced by the Persian invasion of Greece, which took place during his lifetime. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in plays to allow for conflict among them previously, characters interacted only with the chorus. He is the earliest of the three Greek tragedians whose plays survive extant, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. Greek Αισχύλος, Ésquilo in Portuguese Esquilo in Spanish Eschyle en français Eschil in romanian Эсхил in russian.Īeschylus, an ancient Greek playwright, is often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy.

Aeschylus the oresteia agamemnon