Aeschylus
Aeschylus (525 – 455 BC) was Ancient Greece’s greatest playwright, who penned more than 90 plays, most of them winning prizes in Athens’ great drama festivals and many of which are performed to this day in theaters around the world. He is credited with being the founder of serious drama, and is frequently referred to as the “The Father of Tragedy“. He supposedly used to be farm worker, until a vision from the god Dionysius ordered him write plays instead.
Acting, as the term is understood today, was invented by Aeschylus. Before him, theater consisted of a narrator telling a story, interrupted at intervals with a chorus performing a song and dance. Aeschylus was eschew a narrator recounting the tale, using actors instead to play out the story with distinct roles and an exchange of dialogue. He elevated production values by using striking imagery and extravagant costumes, and his innovations also included a wheeled platform to change stage scenery, and using a crane to lift actors in scenes involving flight or descent from the heavens.
His main themes were conflicts between men and the gods, between the individual and the state, and the inevitability of divine retribution for sins. Playwrights used to submit three tragedies for competitions at drama festivals, and Aeschylus became the first to link his three plays into a trilogy, which usually followed a family over several generations, such as the Oresteia, about king Agamemnon during the Trojan War, and his descendants in its aftermath.
Aeschylus fought in the Battle of Marathon, in which his brother was killed, as well as the battles of Artemisium and Salamis. Those experiences found expression in his play, The Persians. For all his literary accomplishments, Aeschylus’ self-penned epitaph did not mention his success as a playwright, but stated what he was proudest of in his life and what he wanted to be remembered for: that he had fought at Marathon.
His productive life came to a bizarre end in 455 BC, while he was visiting Gela, in Sicily. After receiving a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, he left the city and stayed outdoors to avoid that fate. While sitting in a field on the outskirts of Gela, an eagle clutching a tortoise in its talons and seeking something with which to break the shell, mistook Aeschylus’ bald head for a rock and dropped the tortoise on it, killing him instantly.