The Persians
Aeschylus presented The Persians at Athens' City Dionysia festival in 472 BC. Pericles served as the choregos for this production. This event marked the first time a play about contemporary history won first prize. The performance took place just eight years after Aeschylus fought at Salamis. He may have even participated in that naval battle himself. The play stands as the oldest surviving piece of ancient Greek drama. It remains his only complete tragedy from the Classical period.
Atossa narrates what is probably the first dream sequence in European theatre. An exhausted messenger arrives to describe the Battle of Salamis. He details the gory outcome and names the Persian generals who died. Xerxes had escaped and was returning home. The Greeks charged with a specific battle cry. Atossa asks the chorus to summon the ghost of her dead husband Darius. Darius condemns the hubris behind his son's decision to invade Greece. He rebukes the impious bridge built over the Hellespont. The ghost prophesies another defeat at Plataea in 479 BC. Xerxes finally arrives dressed in torn robes. Grief swarms around him as he wears tatters and rags.
Scholars debate whether the text sympathizes with Persians or celebrates Greek victory. Phrynichus wrote two plays about the Persians before Aeschylus. His Sack of Miletus won a fine for emphasizing Athens' abandonment of its colony. The sympathetic school finds weight in Aristotelian criticism. Every other extant Greek tragedy invites an audience's sympathy for characters on stage. The celebratory school argues the play fits a xenophobic culture. They claim it would be difficult to sympathize with a hated enemy during war. Xerxes calls his pains a joy to his enemies. The Persian Wars did not formally conclude until 449 BC with the Peace of Callias.
Hiero of Syracuse invited Aeschylus to reproduce The Persians in Sicily. The Vita Aeschyli claims the play was well received there. Seventy years after production, Aristophanes mentions an Athenian reproduction in Frogs. He has Aeschylus describe the work as an effective sermon on the will to win. Dionysus says he loved the bit where they sang about Darius. The chorus went like this with their hands and cried Wah. The play remained popular throughout the Roman Empire. It also endured in the Byzantine Empire. During a 1965 production at Athens, the audience rose to its feet en masse. They interrupted the actors' dialogue with cheers.
Peter Sellars directed a 1993 production responding to the Gulf War of 1990, 1991. Robert Auletta provided a new translation for the Edinburgh Festival. Hamza El Din composed and performed the music. Ben Halley Jr added additional music. Bruce Odland and Sam Auinger handled sound design. Dunya Ramicova designed costumes while James F. Ingalls managed lighting. Cordelia Gonzalez played Atossa and Howie Seago portrayed the Ghost of Darius. John Ortiz played Xerxes. Ellen McLaughlin translated Persians in 2003 for Tony Randall's National Actors Theatre. Her version responded to George Bush's invasion of Iraq. Len Cariou starred as Darius and Michael Stuhlbarg as Xerxes. Kaite O'Reilly won the Ted Hughes Award for her 2010 translation produced on Sennybridge Training Area.
Aeschylus' drama served as a model for Percy Bysshe Shelley's Hellas. Shelley published this lyrical drama in 1821 before his death. T. S. Eliot echoed line 432 of the Messenger account in The Waste Land. He wrote that he had not thought Death had undone so many. Dante also drew similar lines from Inferno Canto III. Dimitris Lyacos used quotations from the Messenger's account in Z213: Exit. His dystopian epic conveys the failure of a military operation. Broken syntax evokes a landscape in the aftermath of war. The excerpts enter a context of fragmentation where troops retreat. Modern readers find these broken texts evocative of post-apocalyptic settings.
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Common questions
When was Aeschylus The Persians first performed at Athens' City Dionysia festival?
Aeschylus presented The Persians at Athens' City Dionysia festival in 472 BC. This event marked the first time a play about contemporary history won first prize.
What historical battle did Aeschylus fight in eight years before writing The Persians?
The performance took place just eight years after Aeschylus fought at Salamis. He may have even participated in that naval battle himself.
Who is the character Atossa in Aeschylus The Persians and what does she do?
Atossa narrates what is probably the first dream sequence in European theatre. She asks the chorus to summon the ghost of her dead husband Darius.
Did the Persian Wars formally conclude until 449 BC with the Peace of Callias?
The Persian Wars did not formally conclude until 449 BC with the Peace of Callias. Xerxes had escaped and was returning home while the Greeks charged with a specific battle cry.
Which modern production of Aeschylus The Persians responded to the Gulf War of 1990, 1991?
Peter Sellars directed a 1993 production responding to the Gulf War of 1990, 1991. Hamza El Din composed and performed the music for this version.
All sources
13 references cited across the entry
- 1webAeschylus Fragments 57–154theoi.com
- 2bookAeschylus: Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, Eumenides, FragmentsSmyth, H. W. — Harvard University Press — 1930
- 5bookLocating the AudienceKirsty Sedgman — Intellect — 2016