Abstract
Plays and a symbol which have endured. The plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides have not lost favor. If Aeschylus is preferred, what is the basis for that election? There is a special attraction about the tragedies of Aeschylus, something which sets them above the great works of Sophocles and Euripides. Intangible? Intangible to be sure but explicable. The point is that Aeschylus sometimes is played in the original. The modern adaptation hews close to what is thought to have been the creation of Aeschylus. But far more often Aeschylean tragedies are freely adapted. It is as though the imaginations of modern playwrights—and painters, sculptors, poets and musicians as well—were inspired to light their candle from Aeschylus’ plays and then to light a scene of their own. That is what the poet-playwright, Robert Lowell, did with his Prometheus Bound, written at the close of the 1960’s. Even more recently—and with utter freedom in borrowing—Peter Brook, collaborating with the British poet, Ted Hughes, produced the experimental drama, Orghast (1971), whose principal figure was Prometheus. Nor did the Prometheus in Orghast exhaust the events association with Aeschylus. The play had been commissioned by the Shah of Iran who was celebrating the founding of the Persian empire. Orghast was played above the ruins of the palace built at Persepolis by Darius and occupied by his son, Xerxes, ‘hero’ of Aeschylus’ Persians.
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References
One legend has it that Prometheus fashioned men from clay. These creatures or creations of Prometheus were a way of saying that Prometheus or Promethean ventures were identified with mankind.
Raymond Trousson. Le Thème de Prométhée dans la Littérature Européenne. 2 Vols. Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1964. Oskar Walzel. Das Prometheussymbol von Shaftesbury zu Goethe. München: Max Hueber Verlag, 1932.
Douglas Bush. Mythology and the Romantic Tradition in English Poetry. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1937. Christian Kreutz. Das Prometheussymbol in der Dichtung der Englischen Romantik. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963.
Paul Claudel. Œuvres Complètes. 22 Vols. Paris: NRF, Gallimard, 1950–67. William H. Matheson, Claudel and Aeschylus: A Study of ClaudeVs Translation of the Oresteia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, n.d.
E. Lobel, C. H. Robert, and E. P. Wegener (trans. and eds.) The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Part XVIII. London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1941; Part XX. London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1952.
Archons began their annual service in the Spring: an archon-year would span two calendar years.
The Vita probably was written in the tenth or eleventh century. The Suidas (Suda) refers to the tenth century Lexicon in which the entry on Aeschylus appeared. Both the Vita and Suidas, together with elegies relevant to Aeschylus, are available in translation. Reference is to Gilbertus Murray. (Aeschyli: Septem Quae Supersunt Tragoediae. Oxonii: E Typographeo Clarendoniano, MDCCCCLV, p. 370 ff.)
The seven are to be found in manuscript M, which is in Florence’s Laurentian library where it is catalogued as Mediceus Laurentianus, codex 32, 9. There is reason to believe M the most reliable manuscript among alternatives. For a discussion of the manuscripts reference is to R. D. Dawe, the Collation and Investigation of Manuscripts of Aeschylus. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964).
A careful critique of the subject is to be found in the first chapter, “Inventaire des Oeuvres d’Eschyle,” of André Wartelle. Histoire du Texte d’Eschyle dans l'Antiquité. (Paris: Société d’Edition “Les Belles Lettres,” 1971).
The sum of twenty-eight is explained by Pickard-Cambridge by acknowledging that in some lists, Athenian and Alexandrian, Aeschylus’ victories sometimes were entered in his own name, and in others in the name of a producer. (Arthur Pickard-Cambridge. The Dramatic Festivals of Athens. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953, pp. 87, 100. “Marm. Par., ep. 56; Vita (6); Plut., Cimon, VIII.”) (Molitor. “The Life.” fn. 36, p. 10.)
Pickard-Cambridge. Dramatic Festivals, p. 101.
The most adequate scholarship on the subject of Aeschylus’ life seems to me to have been done by Professor Michael Molitor, Department of Classics, University of Calgary, Canada. Professor Molitor generously loaned the author his unpublished “The Life of Aischylos: A Preliminary Sketch” and gave permission to quote from it. Molitor, “The Life,” p. 1, cites the following as sources: PA, 442; RE. (13), I, i, coll. 1065-1084; Ach., 9-11; Nub., 1364–1368; Av., 807-808; Lys., 187-189; Thesm., 134-136; Ran., 755-1533; Fragg., 153, 610, 618 (?), 643, 646, 677, 678; Telecleides, Frag. 14; Phere-crates, Frag. 94; Anaxilas, Frag. 19; Anon. Frag. 67. There are testimonia derived from the plays of Aeschylus or from fourth-and third-century writers. But no one of these writers had any first hand knowledge of Aeschylus. They were dependent upon “(1) the plays themselves, (2) official didascalic records, (3) references to Aischylos in the works of the fifth-century writers, and perhaps (4) on oral tradition. Seven of the plays together with many scattered fragments from some of the others have come down to us. Only a few tantalizing fragments of the didascalic records, as preserved and passed on by Aristotle, are extant today.” (Molitor. “The Life,” p. 1 ff.)
The Vita and Suidas.
H. D. F. Kitto. Greek Tragedy. New York: Barnes & Noble, 1961. p. 63.
The Musical Inquiry is a short treatise attached to the Bios Aeschyli and accompanies the Medicean (M) manuscript.
For example, F. R. Earp. The Style of Aeschylus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948.
Else. The Origin, p. 2, and Chapter IV, “Aeschylus: The Creation of Tragic Drama.”
Ibid., p. 3.
Ibid., p. 9.
Ibid., p. 12 ff.
Ibid., p. 15 ff.
Ibid., p. 21.
Else elaborates his argument in the third chapter of The Origin and Early Form of Greek Tragedy, “Thespis: The Creation of Tragoidia.”
Ibid., p. 21.
Garvie. Aeschylus’ Supplices, p. 103; Aristotle.
Ibid., p. 106 ff.
With but seven tragedies extant, dating the Suppliants on stylistic grounds is most risky. (Garvie. Aeschylus’ Supplices, Chap. II). Earp (F. R. Earp. “The date of the Supplices of Aeschylus.” G & R, 22 (1953), p. 119) however, uses style to date the Suppliants early in Aeschylus’ career. Wolff’s line of reasoning, taken in its entirety, has been more persuasive. Wolff had the benefit of Earp’s study and the papyrus fragment Oxyrhynchus Papyri (XX. 2256, Fr. 3) published in 1952. This fragment was the first external evidence bearing on the dating of the Suppliants. On the assumption that external evidence is of more worth than even the most scholarly dating on stylistic grounds, Wolff did well to be guided by the papyrus fragment. To sum her argument, the fragment appears to come from the conclusion of the argument to a play, stating that a tetralogy by Aeschylus, the last two plays of which were Danaids and Amymone, won first place in a competition against Sophocles. It is generally agreed that the Suppliants is the first play of this Aeschylean tetralogy. Therefore, if the papyrus refers to the first performance the Suppliants could not have been shown before 469, or perhaps 466 B. C., and very possibly, not earlier than 463. The earliest dating has the Suppliants produced two years before Seven Against Thebes, or perhaps four years later than Seven and only five years before the Oresteia. (Emily A. Wolff. “The Date of Aeschylus’ Danaid Tetralogy.” Eranos, 56 (1958), p. 119.) Inasmuch as Wolff has agreed that 463 B.C. is a possible date for the first performance of the Suppliants, there is no great disagreement between her and other scholars who date the play about 463. (For a summary of these authorities see Alexander G. McKay. “Aeschylean Studies 1955–1964, II.” CW, 59 (Oct., 1965), p. 42.
The events being celebrated in the Persians had transpired in 480–479 B.C. (the date of the battle of Plataea in which Aeschylus fought). The battles of 480–497 B.C. were glorious victories for the Athenians and it is difficult to understand why Aeschylus had not shown the Persians in Athens before 472. That Aeschylus was away from Athens in Sicily is a very good explanation.
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© 1975 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Beck, R.H. (1975). The Symbol and the Man. In: Aeschylus: Playwright Educator. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-8818-0_1
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