Aeschylus (/ˈiːskɨləs/ or /ˈɛskɨləs/; Greek: Αἰσχύλος, Aiskhulos; c. 525/524 – c. 456/455 BC) 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. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in plays to allow conflict among them whereas characters previously had interacted only with the chorus.Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived, and there is a longstanding debate about his authorship of one of these plays, Prometheus Bound. Fragments of some other plays have survived in quotes and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyrus, often giving us surprising insights into his work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy; his Oresteia is the only ancient example of the form to have survived.At least one of his works was influenced by the Persian invasion of Greece, which took place during his lifetime. This play, The Persians, is the only extant classical Greek tragedy concerned with recent history (very few of that kind were ever written) and it is a useful source of information about that period. So important was the war to Aeschylus and the Greeks that, upon his death, around 456 BC, his epitaph commemorated his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon rather than his success as a playwright.
It is a profitable thing, if one is wise, to seem foolish.
4
In war, truth is the first casualty.
5
It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.
6
I would far rather be ignorant than wise in the foreboding of evil.
7
Of all the gods, Death only craves not gifts: Nor sacrifice, nor yet drink-offering poured Avails; no altars hath he, nor is soothed By hymns of praise. From him alone of all The powers of heaven Persuasion holds aloof.
8
He who learns must suffer. And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
9
His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.
10
Destiny waits alike for the free man as well as for him enslaved by another's might.
11
Words are the physicians of the mind diseased.
12
Time as he grows old teaches all things.
13
For somehow this is tyranny's disease, to trust no friends.
Writer
Title
Year
Status
Character
Die Perser
2003
TV Movie
Le rêve plus fort que la mort
2002
Documentary play "The Persians"
Promithefs enantiodromon
1998
play "Promithefs desmotis"
Aeschylus' Oresteia (Tony Harrison Adaptation), the National Theatre