ABOUT THE WRITER AND PERFORMER OF THE ORESTEIA TRILOGY
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| The murder of Aigisthos by Orestes. Detail from Athenian red-figure clay vase, late archaic period. Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum |
"AESCHYLUS (525-4 B.C. - 456-5 B.C.) surpassed his predecessors and competitors not only as a dramatic poet but also as a theatrical showman. The following excerpts from an ancient biography record his theatrical accomplishments with enthusiasm. We must be aware, however, that the anonymous biographer compiled his account from rather spurious sources:
In his youth Aeschylus began to compose tragedies; in his poetry, in the brilliant mounting of his plays, in the costuming of his actors, and the magnificence of his choruses, he far surpassed his predecessors. As Aristophanes said in The Frogs: “But you, O first of the Greeks , erected noble phrases and embellished tragic trumpery.”
A contemporary of Pindar, Aeschylus was born 525 years before our era. Of noble birth, he fought in the Battle of Marathon along with his brother, Cynegirus, and later in the Battle of Salamis with his oldest brother, Aminias. He also is supposed to have served in the Battle of Plataea.
In his writing he always tended toward vigor and loftiness of tone, employing onomatopoeia, epithets, metaphors, and anything that he felt might lend power to his verse. His dramatic structure, however, was quite simple in comparison with that of the younger dramatists since he indulged in fewer peripeties and plot complications. Sublimity meant everything to him. For this reason he concentrated on the grandeur and heroic elevation of his characters, considering it altogether outside the scope of the tragic playwright to portray seemingly ingenious and sententious rogues. Aristophanes made fun of Aeschylus for what he considered the excessive austerity of his characters: in the Niobe, even up to the third part, the mother sits by the tomb of her children restraining her feelings and not uttering a sound; likewise, in the Ransoming of Hector, Achilles completely suppresses his emotions and, save for a reply or two to Hermes in the beginning, has nothing to say. While one finds many different types of artistic treatment in Aeschylus, one looks in vain for those sentiments which draw tears. He uses his dramatic and scenic devices to evoke the stronger passions.
Aeschylus retired to Sicily, to the court of the tyrant Hieron, because, according to some, he was oppressed by the Athenians and defeated by the young Sophocles at the City Dionysia; according to others, because he was surpassed by Simonides in an elegy on those who fell in the Battle of Marathon. It is said that the elegy of Simonides excelled in subtlety of feeling.
When, at the performance of The Eumenides, Aeschylus introduced the chorus in wild disorder into the orchestra, he so terrified the crowd that children died and women suffered miscarriage.
While in Sicily, Aeschylus wrote a tragedy entitled The Aetnaean Women, in which he predicted prosperity for the city of Aetna, which had been recently founded by Hieron. He was greatly honored by the tyrant and later by the inhabitants of Gela, on the southwest coast of Sicily, where, being very old, he died. His death, however, was an accident. An eagle having seized a tortoise and not being master of his prey , dropped it against the rocks to crack the shell. It struck the poet and killed him. He had been warned of his fate by an oracle which declared: “A heavenly missile shall slay thee.” The citizens of Gela buried him with great pomp in a civic monument, inscribing thereon an epitaph of the poet’s own composing: “Here lies Aeschylus of Athens, son of Euphorion, who died in fertile Gela, and whose prowess the long-haired Mede experienced on the celebrated battlefield of Marathon.” His tomb became an object of public veneration, while his tragedies as well as a dramatized version of his life were presented there. Indeed, so beloved was the poet that after his death the Athenians voted that anyone wishing to produce his plays should have a chorus. He lived sixty-nine years during which he wrote seventy tragedies and five satyric plays. He won about thirteen victories, and not a few of them after his death.
Aeschylus was the first to advance tragedy by means of a more exalted passion. He introduced scenic decorations — paintings, machinery, altars, tombs, trumpets, spirits, Furies — whose splendor delighted the eyes of the audience. He also supplied the actors with sleeved and full-length robes and heightened the buskins to increase their stature. Cleander was the first actor he employed. Later he added Mynniscus of Chalcis as his second. He was also the instigator of the third actor, though Sophocles is given the credit by Dicaearchus of Messene. If we compare the simplicity of Aeschylus’ dramatic compositions with those of his successors, they might be judged jejune and wanting in elaborateness. But if we consider those preceding him, we may well admire our poet for his great talent and inventiveness. Those who hold that Sophocles was a greater tragic poet are right in their opinion, but they should keep in mind that it was more difficult, after Thespis, Phrynichus, and Choerilus, to elevate tragedy to such heights of greatness than for one who wrote after Aeschylus to arrive at the perfection of Sophocles."
Above text from: Nagler, A. M. (2013-04-09). A Source Book in Theatrical History (Kindle Locations 650-660).
What can we learn from this anonymous biographer? He clearly loved a good story (as much as the Greek historian Herodotus), and his facts are often questioned, but what can we learn from his account even if its facts are disputed?
We learn from Deipnosaphistai (The Banquet of the Learned), texts compiled by Athenaeus in the Christian Era (200s AD), that Aeschylus "originated many dance-figures and assigned them to members of his choruses" and ""that he acted in his own plays." But whereas Athenaeus takes the comedies of the period as a source of information about the tragedians, our anonymous source above seems to rely on stories about the past. Is one any more credible than the other? Why?
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