We have already talked in previous articles about the ancient Greek theater. About Thespis, who is considered the first actor whose name is known and to whom the invention of tragedy is attributed, and about Phrynicus, a contemporary and collaborator of his, who seems to have also had an influence on the invention and who also contributed novelties such as the tragedy with a historical theme and the writing of a second part.
Both would have been active during the second half of the sixth century BC. and the first quarter of the 5th century B.C. At the beginning of this century he also began his career as a playwright Aeschylus, who won his first victory in a dramatic festival in 484 BC. defeating, among others, Phrynicus himself.
Aeschylus, who had fought the Persians at the battles of Marathon (490 BC), Salamis (480 BC), and Plataea (479 BC), captured his experiences of war in some of his best-known works. One of them written in the year 472 B.C. and titled The Persians It is the oldest play that is preserved, as well as the only one that deals with events contemporary to its author.
Phrynicus had been the first to write a tragedy based on contemporary events, The Taking of Miletus , in 494 BC, and Aeschylus will follow in his footsteps with The Persians 22 years later. Interestingly, Phrynicus had written a sequel titled The Phoenician (thus inventing the second parts) only 4 years before the work of Aeschylus, in which he dealt with the victory of the Greeks in the battle of Salamis.
The Persians it was also about the victory at Salamis, and for example Glaucus of Regio said in 400 B.C. which Aeschylus had imitated the beginning of The Phoenician of Phrynicus. Unfortunately we can't know because there is no play left before Los Persas (although we do know fragments of many because they have been cited in works by other authors).
But Aeschylus had also wanted to surpass Phrynicus, who, as we have already said, had invented the sequels, and had gone a step further by inventing the trilogies. Thus, The Persians it was the second part of a trilogy, the first in history, of which the other two parts have been lost. With this trilogy financed by Pericles as choreographer, Aeschylus won first prize in the Great Dionysias, the Athenian festival that was celebrated in the month of March, probably on the occasion of the end of winter, in the year 472 BC.
The first work of the trilogy was titled Fineo and it is believed that it was about the rescue of the king of the same name by Jason and the Argonauts. The subject of the third, Glaus , may have been a mythological character or be set in the battle of Plataea. The three could have been connected by the theme of divine punishment , since in The Persians Xerxes earns the enmity of the gods by his expedition against the Greeks.
The Persians has an unusual beginning. It opens with a chorus of elders from Susa (usually the choir appears later), one of the Persian capitals, joined by Xerxes' mother, Atosa, as they await news of her son. Here is produced, by Atosa, the narration of what may be the first sequence of dreams in European theater.
A messenger arrives with news of the Persian defeat, and Atosa asks the chorus to summon her late husband Darius for advice. Darío's ghost appears and explains that everything is the fault of the hubris (excess) of Xerxes. This one, who does not appear until the end of the work lamenting, ends up accepting the cause of his defeat.
The difference between The Taking of Miletus of Phrynichus and The Persians Aeschylus is that he mocked the enemy by extolling the Greeks, while Aeschylus seems to want the audience to take pity on the Persians.
The play was very popular throughout antiquity, with numerous performances over the years, especially in the times of the Roman and Byzantine Empires, who also waged wars against the Persians. Comedy writer Aristophanes mentions in his play The Frogs , written some 70 years after The Persians , a new staging in Athens, and puts in the mouth of Aeschylus that with the Persians, my masterpiece, I inspired you with a burning desire to always defeat your enemies .
Many later authors used fragments of The Persians in his own works, especially phrases taken from the speech of the messenger announcing defeat. Among them Dante in the Divine Comedy :
And also T.S. Eliot in The Waste Land when he says he had not thought that death would have undone so many . Both echo line 432 of Aeschylus' play, when the messenger says: