The oldest of the three great playwrights of Athens was born in 525 BC in Eleusis. His father, Euphorion, was a noble landowner who ensured that the young Aeschylus received the best possible education. At the age of twenty-five, he participated in a tragedy competition but failed. After ten years, in 490 BC, he took part alongside his brothers, Ameni and Cynaegirus, in the great battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea. Immediately after, he began writing his works. In 484 BC, he won the first prize in the theatrical competitions, followed by twelve more victories, including that of 472 BC, when his play "Persians" was staged, the plot of which revolves around the significant military events of the Persian Wars, in which he himself had participated.

Aeschylus's speech, grand and with unmatched flexibility in the ability to outline, utilizes the most measured verbal tools, images of dense meaning and immediate emotion, inspiring in the audience from ancient times to the present, a sense of awe and the sublime. This style is excellently intertwined with the events in his tragedies, which aim to make the viewer feel the great and unchanging values that govern human life: his insignificance in the face of the supernatural and death, his greatness when he consciously embraces principles that transcend him, such as the unwritten laws, the connection with the divine, so that human actions are kept within the limits of moderation, and people are protected from the vengeful fury of their fellow men, the gods, and nature, when they transgress.

In the tragedies of Aeschylus, man does not exist as an individual but as a part of human society, the society of the gods, and finally nature itself. Besides the style and content of his tragedies that render him a classic and universal poet, Aeschylus deserves to be considered the first playwright and the true creator of tragedy as a theatrical genre.

CACTUS AESCHYLUS ANCIENT GREEK LITERATURE CACTUS AESCHYLUS