*Includes pictures of the famous Greek playwrights and the play’s characters
*Includes Table of Contents
Along with Sophocles and Euripides, Aeschylus (circa 524-455 B.C.) is one of the triumvirate of Ancient Greek playwrights responsible for much of the establishment of Western drama as it exists today. Aeschylus was the first whose work survived and is credited as the Father of Tragedy, though the other two are probably better known in the West today. He was famous even among his contemporaries; Aristotle mentions how he revolutionized plays by creating more characters and having them interact with each other to produce conflict.
Some of the Ancient Greeks’ most famous characters are famous because of Aeschylus, none more so than Orestes. Aeschylus is believed to have written nearly 100 plays, but less than 10 survived, chief among them being the trilogy known as The Oresteia, consisting of the three tragedies Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides. He’s also credited for Prometheus Bound, though the authorship of that one is still in dispute.
The Persians is the oldest surviving play in history, written in the early 5th century B.C. shortly after the Second Persian War. It picks up with the Persians’ defeat at the Battle of Salamis, and it was rare in that it covered a relatively contemporaneous event, as momentous for the Greeks as it was. The play follows the famous Persian Emperor Xerxes, the ghost of his father Darius, and others. It is believed to be the middle part of a trilogy, but the other two did not survive.
This edition of Aeschylus’s The Persians is specially formatted with a Table of Contents and is illustrated with pictures of the famous Ancient Greek playwrights, famous art depicting the play’s characters, and more.
