Aeschylus c.525-c.456BC
Greek tragic dramatist

Born in Eleusis, he served in the Athenian army in the Persian Wars, was wounded at Marathon (490BC) and probably fought at Salamis (480). His first victory as a poet was gained in the dramatic competitions of 484 and he won 13 first prizes in tragic competitions before losing to Sophocles in 468. Out of some 60 plays ascribed to him, only seven are extant: The Persians, the Seven against Thebes, the Prometheus Bound, the Suppliants, and the Oresteia, which comprises three plays about the murder of Agamemnon and its consequences (the Agamemnon, the Choephoroe and the Eumenides) and was his last great success on the Athenian stage (458). He was the first great writer of tragedy and must be credited with devising its classical form and presentation. His verse is marked by the grandeur of its diction, and by the great scope of his themes (the conflict between human and divine law, free will and fate, retribution and forgiveness). He was regarded in antiquity as the exemplar of his two great successors, Sophocles and Euripides. A story says that he died in Sicily when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald head.

Bibliography: T Rosenmeyer, The Art of Aeschylus (1982); G Murray, Aeschylus: the Inventor of Tragedy (1940)