Aeschylus is the oldest of the three Athenian tragedians, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, whose works have survived. Born at Eleusis probably in 525 or 524 BC, he lived through the end of tyranny and the beginning of democracy in Athens in the last decade of the sixth century and through its full development in the first half of the fifth century. In the Persian Wars he himself fought (and a brother was killed) at Marathon in 490 BC and probably in the great naval battle at Salamis in 480 BC. He first presented tragedies in the annual competition at the City Festival of Dionysus in 499 BC, and won his first victory in 484 BC. He evidently composed between eighty and ninety plays, most of which survive only as fragments or titles. We have seven tragedies that are attributed to him, of…
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Citation: Garvie, Alexander Femister. "Aeschylus". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 October 2001; last revised 25 January 2010. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=40, accessed 22 November 2024.]
