In 472 BC, Aeschylus, eight years after the decisive naval battle of Salamis, presents the Persians, the oldest surviving tragedy. Four years earlier, Phrynichus had dramatized the same theme in the Phoenician Women, from which the great tragic poet slightly altered a line, according to the ancient premise of Aeschylus' work.

Despite the commonality of the theme, we do not have information on how the lost drama handled its historical material, but we are satisfied with the valuable news that Phrynichus, like his younger contemporary, placed the action in Persia, thus addressing the action from the perspective of the defeated.

Aeschylus, with his work, sought to compose a kind of political treatise in poetic form on the pathology of a great power. Specifically, he aimed to show how a superpower can be destroyed if it surpasses certain moral boundaries, as emphasized by the specter of Darius in his speech, which undoubtedly reflects the views of the tragic poet himself.

[Excerpt from the text of the preface]