Aeschylus

The Oresteia by Aeschylus, the only extant trilogy among the Greek tragedies, is one of the great foundational texts of Western culture. Beginning with Agamemnon, which describes Agamemnon's return from the Trojan War and his murder at the hands of his wife, Clytemnestra, and continuing through Orestes' murder of Clytemnestra in Libation Bearers and his acquittal at Athena's court in Eumenides, the trilogy traces the evolution of justice in human...

Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays can still be read or performed, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. He is often described as the father of tragedy: our knowledge of the genre begins with his work and our understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays. Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived into modern times. Fragments of some other...

From the perspective of the townspeople and the queen, Clytemnestra, Agamemnon follows the emotional journey of grief, rage, and revenge. Agamemnon had dedicated much of his life to a war that his brother started. He vowed to do whatever it takes to win-committing war crimes and killing innocents. But, even in victory, Agamemnon feels unsatisfied and plagued by the bloodshed he caused. Because of this, he decides to perform a ritual to clear his conscience...

An unfortunate result of the eagerness of modern commentators to lay stress on Aeschylus as a thinker and religious poet has been the frequent neglect to observe The Libation Bearers, like Agamemnon, is full of suspense, action, and skillfully contrived surprise.

Aeschylus I contains ?The Persians,? translated by Seth Benardete; ?The Seven Against Thebes,? translated by David Grene; ?The Suppliant Maidens,? translated by Seth Benardete; and ?Prometheus Bound,? translated by David Grene. Sixty years ago, the University of Chicago Press undertook a momentous project: a new translation of the Greek tragedies that would be the ultimate resource for teachers, students, and readers. They succeeded. Under the expert...

A brief discussion of the life of Aeschylus and the structure of early tragedy accompanies a translation of the three plays based on H.W. Smyth's Loeb Classical Library text.