Arthur Sidgwick

“ Supplices.—The exceptional interest of the Supplices is due to its date. Being nearly twenty years earlier than any other extant play, it furnishes evidence of a stage in the evolution of Attic drama which would otherwise have been unrepresented. Genius, as Patin says, is a “puissance libre,” and none more so than that of Aeschylus; but with all allowance for the “uncontrolled power” of this poet, we may feel confident that we have in the Supplices something resembling in general structure the lost works of Choerilus, Phrynichus, Pratinas and the 6th-century pioneers of drama. ”

“ As to the importance of the second actor no argument is needed. The essence of a play is dialogue; and a colloquy between the coryphaeus and a messenger (or, by aid of the mask, a series of messengers) , as must have been the case when Aeschylus began, is in reality not dialogue in the dramatic sense at all, but rather narrative. The discussion, the persuasion, the instruction, the pleading, the contention—in short, the interacting personal influences of different characters on each other—are indispensable to anything that can be called a play, as we understand the word ”

“ Nothing in the world so tenaciously resists innovation as religious ceremony; and it is interesting to learn that the Athenian populace (then, as ever, eager for “some new thing”) nevertheless opposed at first the introduction of other tales. But the innovators won; or otherwise there would have been no Attic drama.
In this way, then, to the original lyric song and dances in honour of Dionysus was added a spoken (but still metrical) interlude by the chorus-leader, and later a dialogue with one actor (at first the poet) , whom the mask enabled to appear in more than one part. ”

“ As the play goes on, this is subtly and delicately indicated by the attitude of the chorus. They enter overflowing with pity. They are slowly chilled and alienated by the hero’s violence and impiety; but they nobly decline, at the last crisis, the mean advice of Hermes to desert Prometheus and save themselves; and in the final crash they share his fate.
Oresteia.—The last and greatest work of Aeschylus is the Oresteia, which also has the interest of being the only complete trilogy preserved to us. It is a three-act drama of family fate, like the Oedipus-trilogy ”

“ Those who hold the Fire-bringer (Πυρφóρος) to be the final play, conjecture that it dealt with the establishment of the worship of Prometheus under that title, which is known to have existed at Athens. But the other order is on all grounds more probable; it keeps the natural sequence—crime, punishment, reconciliation, which is also the sequence in the Oresteia. And if the reconciliation was achieved in the second play, no scheme of action sufficing for the third drama seems even plausible. ”

“ We realize what it must have been for the vast audience—30,000, according to Plato (Symp. 175 e) —to hear, eight years only after the event, from the supreme poet of Athens, who was himself a distinguished actor in the war, this thrilling narrative of the great battle. But this reflexion at once suggests another; it is not a tragedy in the true Greek sense, according to the practice of the 5th-century poets. It may be called in one point of view a tragedy, since the scene is laid in Persia, and the drama forcibly depicts the downfall of the Persian pride. ”

“ Oceanus, the well-meaning palavering old mentor, and Hermes, the blustering and futile jack-in-office, gods though they be, are vigorous, audacious and very human character-sketches; the soft entrance of the consoling nymphs is unspeakably beautiful ”

“ Less supernatural, but hardly more historical, is the statement in the Life that the poet left Athens for Sicily in consequence of his defeat in the dramatic contest of 468 by Sophocles; or the alternative story of the same authority that the cause of his chagrin was that Simonides’ elegy on the heroes slain at Marathon was preferred to his own. Apart from the inherent improbability of such pettiness in such a man, neither story fits the facts; for in 467, the next year after Sophocles’ success, we know that Aeschylus won the prize of tragedy with the Septem ”

“ Even in a trilogy, each play is a complete whole in itself, though also a portion of a larger whole.
Persae.—The next play that has survived is the Persae, which has again a special interest, viz. that it is the only extant Greek historical drama. We know that Aeschylus’ predecessor, Phrynichus, had already twice tried this experiment, with the Capture of Miletus and the Phoenician Women; that the latter play dealt with the same subject as the Persae, and the handling of its opening scene was imitated by the younger poet. ”

“ Thus, though dramatic action is by the nature of the case impossible for the hero, the visitors provide real drama.
Another important point in the development of tragedy is what we may call the “balanced issue.” The question in Suppliants is the protection of the threatened fugitives; in Persae the humiliation of overweening pride. So far the sympathy of the audience is not doubtful or divided. In the Septem there is an approach to conflict of feeling ”

“ In Prometheus the issue is more nearly balanced. The hero is both a victim and a rebel. He is punished for his benefits to man; but though Zeus is tyrannous and ungrateful, the hero’s reckless defiance is shocking to Greek feeling. ”

“ Again, as in Prometheus, the plot, at first sight, is such that the conditions of drama seem to exclude much development in character-drawing. The gods are everywhere at the root of the action. The inspired prophet, Calchas, has demanded the sacrifice of the king’s daughter Iphigenia, to appease the offended Artemis. ”

“ The real importance of our poet in the development of the drama (see Drama: Greek) as compared with any of his three or four Work.known predecessors—who are at best hardly more than names to us—is shown by the fact that Aristotle, in his brief review of the rise of tragedy (Poet. iv. 13) , names no one before Aeschylus. He recognizes, it is true, a long process of growth, with several stages, from the dithyramb to the drama ”

“ The audience suspected him of revealing the inviolable secrets, and rose in fury; the poet fled to the altar of Dionysus in the orchestra and so saved his life for the moment; for even an angry Athenian crowd respected the inviolable sanctuary. He was afterwards charged with the crime before the Areopagus; and his plea “that he did not know that what he said was secret” was accepted by the court and secured his acquittal. The commentator adds that the prowess of the poet (and his brother) at Marathon was the real cause of the leniency of his judges. ”

“ One novelty should not be overlooked. There is here the first passage of διáνοιa or general reflexion of life, which later became a regular feature of tragedy. Eteocles muses on the fate which involves an innocent man in the company of the wicked so that he shares unjustly their deserved fate. ”

“ The dates rest, in the last resort, on the διδασκαλίαι, or the official records of the contests, of which we know that Aristotle (and others) compiled catalogues; and some actual fragments have been recovered. The order of the plays is probably that given above; and certainly the Persae was acted in 472, Septem in 467, and the last three, the trilogy, in 458. The Supplices is generally, though not unanimously, regarded as the oldest; and the best authorities tend to place it not far from 490. ”