Aeschylus (c.525–c.456 BCE) was the earliest writer of Greek tragic drama whose works survive. He is regarded as the founder of Greek tragic drama. His seven extant plays from a known 80 titles include Prometheus Bound and the Oresteia trilogy.
Aeschylus contributed considerably to the methodological development of the dramatic form and the movement away from pure ritual to the theater as we know it. He did so by introducing the concept of two actors in dialogue and by limiting the role of the choral song.
Aeschylus is best known for his trilogy, the Oresteia (458 BCE,) consisting of the tragedies Agamemnon, The Choephori, and The Eumenides.
Using themes from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, the Oresteia tell the story of the fall of the House of Atreus in a series of retributive murders over three generations. Agamemnon, who has killed his daughter to ensure victory over the Trojans, returns home and is killed by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus. This is followed by the vengeance of their son Orestes.
The Oresteia have inspired some of the greatest artists and thinkers of the modern world—from Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche to T. S. Eliot and Simone de Beauvoir.
According to legend, Aeschylus was killed when an eagle dropped a turtle onto his bald head, taking it for a stone on which the shell could be broken. Aeschylus’s head was broken; this fulfilled an oracle’s prediction that Aeschylus would be struck dead by a force from the heavens.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Aeschylus
Obedience is the mother of success and is wedded to safety.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Obedience, Safety
I count false words the foulest plague of all.
—Aeschylus
Time in its aging course teaches all things.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Time Management
I pray for no more youthTo perish before its prime;That Revenge and iron-heated WarMay fade with all that has gone beforeInto the night of time.
—Aeschylus
The wisest of the wise may err.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Wisdom, Mistakes
Justice, voiceless, unseen, seeth thee when thou sleepest and when thou goest forth and when thou liest down. Continually doth she attend thee, now aslant thy course, now at a later time.
—Aeschylus
Death is softer by far than tyranny.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Tyranny
His resolve is not to seem, but to be, the best.
—Aeschylus
Bronze is a mirror of the face, wine of the mind.
—Aeschylus
Memory is the mother of all wisdom.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Memories, Wisdom, Memory
Hell to ships, hell to men, hell to cities.
—Aeschylus
Justice shines in smoky cottages, and honors the pious. Leaving with averted eyes the gorgeous glare obtained by polluted hands, she is wont to draw nigh to holiness, not reverencing wealth when falsely stamped with praise, and assigning to each deed its righteous doom.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Justice
There’s nothing certain in a man’s life except this: That he must lose it.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Certainty, Death, Doubt, Uncertainty
It is easy when we are in prosperity to give advice to the afflicted.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Wealth, Advice
Married love between man and woman is bigger than oaths guarded by right of nature.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Marriage
Who, except the gods, can live time through forever without any pain?
—Aeschylus
Topics: Pain
Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Happiness
The reward of suffering is experience.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Adversity, Experience
Let war stay abroad; it makes no difficulty in coming, for the man who will have in him a strong desire for glory. I disapprove of a bird’s battling in its own home.
—Aeschylus
Fear is stronger than arms.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Anxiety, Fear
Who except the gods can live without any pain?
—Aeschylus
Topics: Acceptance
There is no sickness worse for me than words that to be kind must lie.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Lies, Words, Kindness
There is a limit to the best of health, disease is always a near neighbor.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Health
The rest, I keep silent: a great ox is treading on my tongue—but the house itself, if it got a voice, would speak very plainly.
—Aeschylus
Obedience to truth known, is the king’s highway to that which is still beyond us.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Obedience
For there is no defense for a man who, in the excess of his wealth, has kicked the great altar of Justice out of sight.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Defense
Take heart. Suffering, when it climbs the highest, lasts but a little time.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Suffering
When a match has equal partners then I fear not.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Marriage
In every tyrant’s heart there springs in the end this poison, that he cannot trust a friend.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Tyranny
It is not the oath that makes us believe the man, but the man the oath.
—Aeschylus
Topics: Man, Promises, Character
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