Alan H. Sommerstein - Aeschylus: The Persians and Other Plays
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Aeschylus (525-456 BC) brought a new grandeur and epic sweep to the drama of classical Athens, raising it to the status of high art. The Persians, the only Greek tragedy to deal with events from recent Athenian history, depicts the final defeat of Persia in the battle of Salamis, through the eyes of the Persian court of King Xerxes, becoming a tragic lesson in tyranny. In Prometheus Bound, the defiant Titan Prometheus is brutally punished by Zeus for daring to improve the state of wretchedness and servitude in which mankind is kept. Seven Against Thebes shows the inexorable downfall of the last members of the cursed family of Oedipus, while The Suppliants relates the pursuit of the fifty daughters of Danaus by the fifty sons of Aegyptus, and their final rescue by a heroic king.
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Other Plays
Seven Against Thebes
The Suppliants
Prometheus Bound
Translated with an Introduction by
ALAN H. SOMMERSTEIN
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN CLASSICS
Published by the Penguin Group
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This edition first published in Penguin Classics 2009
Translation and editorial material copyright Alan H. Sommerstein, 2009
All rights reserved
The moral right of the translator and editor has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-195589-6
THE PERSIANS AND OTHER PLAYS
AESCHYLUS (born at Eleusis, near Athens, c. 525 BC ; died at Gela, Sicily, 456 BC ) was the dramatist who first made Athenian tragedy one of the worlds great art forms, though in his epitaph he (or his family) preferred that he should be remembered as one of those who fought the Persians at Marathon. In a career of more than forty years he wrote about eighty plays, and two-thirds of his productions won first prize in the City Dionysia tragic competition. Seven plays attributed to him have survived, one of which Prometheus Bound may actually be by his son. Aeschylus, who visited Syracuse more than once at the invitation of Hieron I , was recognized as a classic writer soon after his death, and special privileges were decreed for his plays.
ALAN H. SOMMERSTEIN has been Professor of Greek at the University of Nottingham since 1988. He has written or edited more than thirty books on Ancient Greek language and literature, especially tragic and comic drama, including Aeschylean Tragedy (1996), Greek Drama and Dramatists (2002), and a complete edition of the comedies of Aristophanes with translation and commentary (19802003). For Penguin Classics he has also translated six plays by Aristophanes in the volumes Lysistrata and Other Plays (2002) and The Birds and Other Plays (1978).
This book is based on my three-volume edition with translation of the plays and fragments of Aeschylus in the Loeb Classical Library, published by Harvard University Press in 2008; I am most grateful both to the Trustees of the Press and to Penguin Books for making it possible for me to bring out my translation of four of the seven surviving plays (together with the fragments of other plays which are known, or which can be assumed with reasonable confidence, to have been produced on the same occasions) in a form more likely to appeal to a broader and less specialized readership. The translation itself is identical with that which appeared in the Loeb volumes. May it help to spread the understanding and appreciation of one who was both a great dramatist and a great democrat.
A.H.S.
Dates given in the form 525/4, 508/7 etc. refer to the Athenian calendar year, which began and ended in the summer. Surviving plays of Aeschylus are shown in capitals.
Year BC
525/4 Traditional date of Aeschylus birth at Eleusis, west of Athens
Hipparchus, brother of the autocrat (tyrant) Hippias, assassinated by Harmodius and Aristogeiton
Hippias expelled with Spartan aid
508/7 Cleisthenes establishes democracy at Athens
499 (?) Aeschylus first tragic production
First Persian invasion; battle of Marathon, in which Aeschylus takes part and his brother Cynegeirus is killed
485/4 Aeschylus wins the tragic competition for the first time
483480 Themistocles creates great Athenian navy
Second Persian invasion, and sack of Athens; battles of Thermopylae (land), Artemisium (sea) and Salamis (sea); Xerxes leaves Mardonius to winter in Greece. Carthaginian offensive in Sicily defeated by Gelon of Syracuse at Himera
Persians defeated at Plataea (land) and off Mycale in Asia Minor (sea), and lose control of the Asian Greeks
479/8 Xanthippus (Pericles father) captures Sestos on the Hellespont; brings Xerxes bridge-cables to Athens
478/7 Foundation of Athenian-led alliance (often called the Delian League) comprising most Greek states of the northern and eastern Aegean and its islands
477/6 Phrynichus wins tragic competition with Themistocles as his sponsor (choregos), probably with a play or plays about the Persian War
473 (?) Death of Phrynichus
473/2 Aeschylus victorious with Phineus, THE PERSIANS, Glaucus of Potniae and Prometheus the Fire-Bearer; Pericles, aged twenty-three, is his choregos
c. 470 Themistocles ostracized (exiled without charge by popular vote). Aeschylus visits Sicily at invitation of Hieron of Syracuse (Gelons brother); produces The Women of Aetna there, and restages The Persians (and perhaps Glaucus of Potniae as well?)
469/8 Sophocles victorious for first time, perhaps defeating Aeschylus
468/7 Aeschylus victorious with Laius, Oedipus, SEVEN AGAINST THEBES and The Sphinx (Sophocles not competing)
464/3 (?) Aeschylus defeats Sophocles with The Egyptians, THE SUPPLIANTS, The Danaids and Amymone.
462/1 After Cimons army, sent to aid Sparta against rebellious subjects, is dismissed by the Spartans, Athens ends its alliance with Sparta and makes a new one with Spartas enemy Argos. Cimon is ostracized. Ephialtes carries laws drastically reducing constraints on powers of democratic institutions but is assassinated shortly thereafter; Pericles begins to emerge as leading figure in his place
Athens makes alliance with Megara, which is already at war with Spartas ally Corinth
Outbreak of open war with Sparta and her allies (which lasts, with intervals, until 446). Major expedition to Cyprus (against Persians) diverted to Egypt, where Athenians and allies will be engaged for five years
459/8 (winter) State funeral for between fifteen hundred and two thousand Athenians (out of a total citizen population unlikely to have exceeded two hundred thousand) killed in years fighting in Europe, Asia and Africa
459/8 (spring) Aeschylus wins the last of his thirteen lifetime first prizes with the Oresteia (AGAMEMNON, THE LIBATION-BEARERS, THE EUMENIDES and Proteus)
456/5 Death of Aeschylus at Gela (Sicily)
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