Aeschylus: Poems

“The tragic poet Aeschylus was by birth an Athenian, of the deme of Eleusis, son of Euphorion and brother of Cynegeirus, by descent a Eupatrid. He began writing his tragedies young, and far surpassed his predecessors in the style of his poetry and in stage-craft, in the splendour of the staging, the dress of the actors, and the dignity of the chorus; compare Aristophanes :

O first in Greece at the building of lofty rhyme and the decking-out of tragic gibble-gabble!

Frogs 1004

He was contemporary with Pindar, his birth falling in the 63rd Olympiad （528-5 B.C.）.. He lived sixty-nine years, during which he wrote seventy dramas as well as about five satyr-plays. His victories were, in all, thirteen, and some he won after his death.

Life of Aeschylus

“From the time when the Athenians fought and won the battle of Marathon against the Persians under Artaphernes nephew of Darius and his general Datis, 227 years, in the archonship of the second Phaenippides at Athens; in which battle the poet Aeschylus took part at the age of thirty-five （490 B.C.）.”

Parian Chronicle

“From the time when the poet Aeschylus first won the victory for tragedy 222 years, in the archonship of Philocrates at Athens （486 B.C.）.”

Parian Chronicle

“From the time when the poet Aeschylus died at the age of sixty-nine at Gela in Sicily 193 years, in the archonship of the first Callias at Athens （456 B.C.）.”

Parian Chronicle

On Those Who Fell At Marathon

“The orator Glaucias declared that the right wing of the line of battle at Marathon was given to this tribe, on the authority of the Elegy on the Borderland 1 composed by Aeschylus, who distinguished himself in the battle.”

Plutarch Dinner-Table Problems [on the Aeantid tribe]

Aeschylus in his Elegies , for instance, calls Tyrrhenia a land of many drugs:

The Tyrrhene race, that people of drug-makers2

Theophrastus History of Plants

New-mixed:—The bowl; compare
and pouring fresh libations of new-mixed wine

Scholiast on Aeschylus Choephoroe [‘the Paean in the royal chambers brings in the dear new-mixed wine’]

Aeschylus:

These staunch warriors also did dark Fate destroy while they defended their country so rich in flocks; living is the fame of these dead, who once endured to clothe themselves in the dust of Ossa.4

Palatine Anthology (ms adds “On others of the Thessalians who fought in the front line,” but this is prob. taken from 1.4)

When he died, the people of Gela buried him sumptuously among the public monuments, and spared no expense to give him honour, inscribing upon his tomb the following lines: ‘This Monument,’ etc.

This monument covers the Athenian Aeschylus son of Euphorion, who died within wheat-bearing Gela;5 his valour will be told by the famous grove of Marathon and the deep-tressed Mede that knew it so well.6

Life of Aeschylus

“Similarly Aeschylus, who enjoyed such great fame for his poetry, nevertheless chose rather that his tomb should commemorate his valour, composing for it the following inscription:”

Athenaeus Doctors at Dinner

But Alexander .. made it his business to excel in the art of arms, and to be, in the words of Aeschylus:

a weighty wrestler-at-arms, terrible to his rivals

Plutarch Fortune of Alexander

1 this title may be corrupt

2 cf. Plin. N.H. 25. 11

3 cf. E.M. 537. 46, 541. 31

4 cf. Vit. Aesch. 119. 45 W

5 for the gen. cf. Aesch. Ag. 1056, Soph. El. 900

6 cf. Eustr. and Arist. Eth. Nic. 3. 2 p. 146 H, Plut. Exil. 13, Paus. i. 14. 5