IV. Persae, Septem, Supplices

I make no apologies for devoting the major part of this survey to a discussion of the individual plays, and in consequence limiting the amount of space given to general topics of Aeschylean technique. So disparate are the individual dramas that to do otherwise incurs the risk of either reducing any comment that is made to valueless platitudes by preferring the commonplace to the distinctive, or creating the impression that the playwright’s works constitute but a single enormous play. Concentration upon the individual plays also serves to reflect the continuing emphasis that recent scholarship places upon this aspect of the poet’s work, and to underscore the fact – all too easily forgotten – that Aeschylus was a writer of dramas, not a pedlar of theatrical effects.Though the earliest extant tragedy, Persae is not an early play in terms of Aeschylus’ literary career; a simple, even ‘primitive’ play in its progression from prosperity to adversity and its emphatic clarity in depicting divine retribution following human pride, yet the successful conversion of historical fact into morally significant drama provides telling evidence of the playwright’s ability to control his material and exploit it for his own purposes that is not without importance for those plays founded on myth. Historical tragedy, however, presents its own peculiar difficulties: the need to balance retention of credibility by not straying too far from objective truth before an audience intimately involved in the events portrayed, with the equally potent need to emphasize, alter, distort, or repress those factors that run counter to the dramatic purpose of the play. In Persae we see this most graphically in the prominence given to Psytalleia as the counterpart to Salamis, the sparse attention to Darius’ own European campaigns, the implication of total Persian retreat immediately after Salamis, and the episode on the Strymon. No less important was the need to avoid converting the action into a celebration of Greek, or more specifically Athenian, victory - an inevitable factor (pace Kitto) in any depiction of Persian defeat, but by the same token one essentially inimical to the spirit of tragedy. That the playwright succeeded most commentators readily admit. Phrynichus had already shown the way in 476 B.c. by setting his own version of the war, Phoenissai, at the Persian capital of Susa, thus ensuring concentration on the Persian point of view.