In Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, the playwright depicts the punishment of Prometheus by the tyrannical Zeus. Zeus’ subordinates understand his tyranny to be characterized by an absolute freedom of action. Yet the tyrant’s absolute freedom as ruler is called into question by insecurity of his position and by his dependence on Prometheus’ knowledge. We find in the Prometheus Bound a model of tyrannical rule riddled with contradictions: The tyrant’s claim to total control and absolute freedom is in tension with a (...) reality characterized by insecurity, impotence, and constraint. We contrast this model of rule with the model found in Aeschylus’ Suppliant Maidens, in which the King, agreeing to be bound by the wishes of his subjects, nevertheless preserves for himself a certain freedom of action that the tyrannical ruler lacks. (shrink)

Although Aeschylus' Oresteia moves toward resolution on many fronts, there are significant counterpoints to these positive progressions. Human stature and initiative decline over the course of the trilogy; the "hero"of the final play is largely passive, with speech and action increasingly the province of the gods; Orestes' "initiation" in Eumenides remains incomplete; and the trilogy ends with not just "uppity" women put in their place but the capacity for human greatness itself reduced. These and other contrapuntal undercurrents complicate and (...) enrich our response to the many resolutions that do occur in the final play of the trilogy. (shrink)

When the death-cry of Agamemnon is heard, the Chorus talks, but does nothing. This is the locus classicus of a Chorus which, in a situation that seems to demand effective intervention, is debarred from intervening by the necessity of remaining a Chorus. Did Aeschylus and his audience feel a difficulty here? No, says Professor G. Thomson; it is merely that modern taste is influenced by ‘the crude realism of the Elizabethan drama’. But this will not do, for it is (...) Aeschylus himself, through the Chorus, who raises the issue of their entering or not entering the palace, which they discuss in the most realistic way. Assuming that a technical difficulty exists, with what skill and success did the dramatist handle it? Criticism has on the whole been adverse. (shrink)

All past interpretations of this passage involve an obscure train of thought. There appear to be two ideas running right through; light-twilight-night, and quick-slow-. But how are we to combine these ideas so as to make sense of them ? Most, if not all, past commentators have agreed in taking to mean ‘punishes’’ and most interpretations conform to one or other of the following patterns.

Aeschylus' famous simile comparing Iphigeneia to a painting just before her sacrifice ( Ag. 239–42) rests not just on the girl's silence and unbroken gaze at her killers but also on the strikingly pitiable nature of her expression. The Euripidean Hecuba's plea to Agamemnon to pity her by gazing on her "like a painter" ( Hec. 807–8) develops this idea and comprises a parallel to aspects of ancient literary criticism that prescribe an emotive identity between poets and their works. (...) The incorporation of painting into these highly charged moments focuses on its ability to arouse pity, a preeminent emotion of tragedy overall. (shrink)

Eumenides 517–25 contains a centrepiece of Aeschylean ideology—the role of punishment and fear in the ruling of the city. However, the text is vexed by serious issues at lines 522–5. This paper reassesses the main problems, reviews the most influential emendations, and puts forward a new hypothesis. It argues in favour of circumscribing the corruption, offering a new interpretation that permits retention of parts of the text that most editors have deemed impossible to restore.

In a recent paper, M. Finkelberg has endorsed part of M.L. West's emendation of the fifth strophe of the second stasimon in Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes. In her opinion, accepting West's emendation also allows adopting earlier emendations proposed by Schütz and Prien, leading to a better understanding of the passage. It is recalled that this is where the chorus relates the disasters that ensued from Oedipus’ discovery of the truth about his marriage. In the following short discussion, I intend (...) to revisit and defend once again the reading, according to which the two acts mentioned in connection with Oedipus’ discovery are gouging out his eyes and casting a curse on his sons, and not murdering his father and bedding his mother. (shrink)

The late Emanuele Severino (1929–2020) was an Italian philosopher whose work on Aeschylus has not yet been made available in English. In Il giogo: alle origini della ragione: Eschilo (The Yoke: At the Origins of Reason: Aeschylus, 1989), Severino seeks to demonstrate that Aeschylus belongs amongst the founders of philosophy, i.e., that Aeschylus was the first to set down some of philosophy’s most fundamental principles, including that ontological becoming produces unbearable suffering and that the only remedy (...) to suffering is knowledge of the truth. Thus, by introducing readers to Severino’s interpretation, and by translating various passages of his work, this article aims to enlarge Severino’s readership and spread his argument for the philosophical stature of Aeschylus. (shrink)

The starting point of this brief discussion is the emendation in line 782 of Aeschylus' Septem proposed by M.L. West in his 1990 Teubner edition. In the fifth strophe of the second stasimon, the chorus recollects the misfortunes that struck Oedipus when he finally discovered the truth about his marriage. This severely corrupt passage, whose original meaning was lost at an early stage of transmission, runs as follows:ἐπεὶ δ' ἀρτίϕρων ἐγένετο [στρ. ε]μέλεος ἀθλίων γάμων,ἐπ' ἄλγει δυσϕορῶν 780μαινομέναι κραδίαιδίδυμα κάκ' (...) ἐτέλεσενπατροϕόνωι χερὶ τῶν†κρεισσοτέκνων δ' ὀμμάτων† ἐπλάγχθη.τέκνοις δ' †ἀραίας† ἐϕῆκεν [ἀντ. ε]ἐπίκοτος τροϕᾶς, αἰαί, 786πικρογλώσσους ἀράς.782 δίδυμ' ἃ West 784 κρεισσοτέκνων M2PKQ1Tr κρείσσω τέκνων rell. κυρσοτέκνων Herm. δ' ὀμμάτων HaQTr δ' ἀπ᾽ ὀμμάτων rell. δωμάτων Schütz χρυσοτέχνων πωμάτων Verrall κρεισσοτέρων γνωμάτων West 785 ἀθλίας Prien ἀρχαίας Wil.But when the miserable man became aware of his wretched marriage, vexed with pain in his frenzied heart, he committed double evil: with his parricidal hand †he wandered from his eyes, dearer than children†. But upon his sons he put bitter-tongued curses, angry on account of his †accursed† sustenance. (shrink)

Few portions of Eduard Fraenkel's commentary on Aeschylus′ Agamemnon have been so influential as the three and a half ages On the Weapon with which, according to the Oresteia, Agamemnon was murdered.1 In contrast with the controversy and disagreement stirred by his remarks on The Footprints in the Choephoroe,2 his thesis concerning Clytemnestra's murder-weapon has met with almost universal approva and the matter is widely regarded as settled. It is symptomatic that within the past twelve months two important books (...) should have appeared4 which independently assume the unquestionable Tightness of Fraenkel's conclusion: the weapon envisaged by Aeschylus was a sword, not an axe. (shrink)

Aeschylus’ Persians dramatically represents the Athenian victory at Salamis from the perspective of the Persian royal court at Susa. Although the play is in some sense a patriotic celebration of the Athenian victory and its democracy, nonetheless in both form and function it is a tragedy that generates sympathy for the suffering of its main character, Xerxes. Although scholars have argued whether the play is primarily patriotic or tragic, I argue that the play purposively provides both patriotic and tragic (...) elements in such a fashion as to invite its audience to reflect on the ramifications of Persia’s failed empire for Athens’ own nascent Delian League, which even in 472 was showing imperialistic tendencies. I argue that Aeschylus’ political theory in Persians is aporetic in the sense that its careful balance between patriotism and anti-imperialism generates an impasse which members of the play’s audience are thus given the occasion to puzzle over. (shrink)

Aeschylus’ Oresteia supports Aristotle’s claim about the naturalness of the city and the city’s role in shaping justice for humans. In the Oresteia, Aeschylus shows how the city’s justice is the only way to control the wrath of the Furies. Aeschylus shows that the city and its justice tames the Furies and provides for the only way by which the husband-wife relation, which is not a blood tie but provides the basis for which the family is even (...) possible, can be preserved and be secure from the passions the Furies release in their quest for revenge. The Furies and their desire for vengeance for the violation of the blood bond, threaten to undermine the very basis on which the family is founded: the husband-wife bond. Thus Aeschylus gives support and aids Aristotle’s position that the husband-wife bond is a political bond and rests within the realm of the city and the political. (shrink)

At Aeschylus Agamemnon 985 the manuscript reading ψαμμίας ἀκάτα is corrupt, giving neither meter nor sense. Wilamowitz’ conjecture ψάμμος ἄμπτα has met with some editorial approval, but its sense is dubious and should be rejected. I propose instead ψάλλον ἀκταῖς, “they were plucking on the shore”, referring to the performance of a paean on the lyre by the Greek fleet departing for, or, less likely, arriving at, Troy. The fleet’s departure would be an appropriate time for the soldiers to (...) perform a paean, for which the lyre was a common accompaniment. Plucking a lyre without strumming, however, as ψάλλον implies, seems to have been a less common performance technique, sometimes culturally marked as ‘Asian’. While there is evidence that a paean with plucked accompaniment might have seemed unexceptional to a Greek audience, if Aeschylus did intend an Asian connotation, I suggest that the Chorus, having just witnessed Agamemnon tread on the purple cloths, would thereby portray the Greek army as already tainted by tryphe on their departure for Troy. Whether ‘Greek’ or ‘Trojan’, the conjectured army’s paean would form an effective counterpoint to the lyre-less threnos in the Chorus’ heart that dominates the ode. (shrink)

These lines of Cassandra's speech, as given in the MSS., run thus: νεν τ' παρχος λίου τ' ναστάτης οκ οδεν οα γλσσα μισητς κυνς λέξασα κα κτείνασα αιδρνους, δίκην της λαθραίου, τεξεται κακ τχ. τοιάδε τολμ· θλυς ρσενος ονες στιν.

In Aeschylus' "Supplices" the Danaids flee their cousins and take refuge at Argos. Scholars have noted similarities between the Argos of the play and contemporary Athens. Yet one such correspondence has generally been overlooked: the Danaids are awarded sanctuary in terms reflecting mid fifth-century Athenian μετοιϰία, a process providing for the partial incorporation of non-citizens into polis life. Danaus and his daughters are of Argive ancestry and take up residence within the city, yet do not become citizens. Instead, they (...) receive the right μετοιϰεῖν τῆσδε γῆς. As metics they retain control of their person and property, and are not liable to seizure by another. They are not permitted to own immovable property, but receive rent-free lodgings. Pelasgus and the other Argive citizens serve as their citizen representative. Casting the Danaids as metics highlights the similarities between Pelasgus and his predecessor, Apis. Both leaders were confronted by violent strangers demanding to live among the Argives, and sought to protect the autochthony and territory of Argos. Yet as suppliants the Danaids cannot be forcibly expelled. Pelasgus' solution is a grant of μετοιϰία approved by the Argive assembly. The emergence of μετοιϰία as a formal status at Athens is difficult to date. Most scholars place it between the reforms of Cleisthenes and Pericles' citizenship law. The "Supplices" provides evidence for a date in the 460s, and functions as a charter myth legitimizing μετοιϰία, much the way the Eumenides does for the Areopagus. The "Supplices" also fits well within the context of immigration and urban development leading to Pericles' law. The fact that the Danaid trilogy won first prize may be due to the Athenians' empathy for Argos as a risk-taking polis committed both to defending its identity and to acknowledging divinely sanctioned claims to refuge. (shrink)

Tr.: ‘Zeus, whoe'er he be, if so to be called is pleasing to him, thus do I name him—I have naught, when I weigh all things in the balance, to count their equal, save Zeus if it behoves me to strike truly this vain burden born of anxiet ‘He that at the outset was great, flourishing with all-conquering boldness, will not stay to accomplish anything; he, as soon as he was born, met his conqueror and is gone. But a man (...) who willingly hails Zeua as victor will achieve wisdom in full measure—. (shrink)

The literary contest of the two tragedians in Frogs is introduced by four stanzas redolent of Homeric combat, with their predominantly dactylic metre and a number of high-flown epic words. I am surprised that several editors prefer the reading ὑψὑλøωυ at 818, as íππóλοøος surely has a resonance of íπποκορυστ⋯ς of Iliad 2.1, etc. The readings and sense, however, of both halves of 819 have long been controversial. As Dover suggested in his 1993 edition the MSS ‘linch-pins of splinters’ is (...) less satisfactory than his proposed transposition to ‘splintering of linch-pins', which suggests a recollection of the dangers of chariot accidents or collisions, as in the funeral games of Il. 23. But the following expression ‘shavings of deeds’ is even more puzzling, and highly improbable, and Heiberg's emendation to σμιλο⋯, agreeing with φωτÓς, is preferred by Stanford among others, though doubted by Dover. (shrink)

Tr.: If I were to tell of suffering and bad billets, of scanty provisions ill set-out—but what was there we did not complain of when we did not get the day's ration? But, as for the dry ground, there was an even greater abomination in that; for our beds were close to the enemy's walls—for from heaven and earth they drenched us with the moisture of meadows, a constant affliction, making the wool of our cloaks foul.