Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/60

42 this accusation was preferred against him, for having in some of his plays either divulged or profanely spoken of the mysteries of Ceres. According to others, the charge originated from his having introduced on the stage the dread goddesses, the Eumenides, which he had done in such a way as not only to do violence to popular prejudice, but also to excite the greatest alarm among the spectators. Now, the Eumenides contains nothing which can he considered as a publication of the mysteries of Ceres, and therefore we are inclined to think that his political enemies availed themselves of the unpopularity he had incurred by his "Chorus of Furies," to get up against him a charge of impiety, which they supported not only by what was objectionable in the Eumenides, but also in other plays not now extant. At any rate, from the number of authorities all confirming this conclusion, there can be no doubt that towards the end of his life Aeschylus incurred the serious displeasure of a strong party at Athens, and that after the exhibition of the Orestean trilogy he retired to Gela in Sicily, where he died B. C. 456, in the 69th year of his age, and three years after the representation of the Eumenides. On the manner of his death the ancient writers are unanimous. (Suidas, s. v. .) An eagle, say they, mistaking the poet's bald head for a stone, let a tortoise fall upon it to break the shell, and so fulfilled an oracle, according to which Aeschylus was fated to die by a blow from heaven. The inhabitants of Gela shewed their regard for his character, by public solemnities in his honour, by erecting a noble monument to him, and inscribing it with an epitaph written by himself. (Paus, i. 14. §4; Athen. xiv. 627. d. Vit. Anon.) In it Gela is mentioned as the place of his burial, and the field of Marathon as the place of his most glorious achievements; but no mention is made of his poetry, the only subject of commemoration in the later epigrams written in his honour. At Athens also his name and memory were holden in especial reverence, and the prophecy in which he (Athen. viii. 347, e. f.) is said to have predicted his own posthumous fame, when he was first defeated by Sophocles, was amply fulfilled. His pieces were frequently reproduced on the stage; and by a special decree of the people, a chorus was provided at the expense of the state for any one who might wish to exhibit his tragedies a second time. (Aristoph. Achar. 102; Aeschyl. vita.) Hence Aristophanes (Ran. 892) makes Aeschylus say of himself, that his poetry did not die with him; and even after his death, he may be said to have gained many victories over his successors in Attic tragedy. (Hermann, Opusc. ii. p. 158.) The plays thus exhibited for the first time may either have been those which Aeschylus had not produced himself, or such as had been represented in Sicily, and not at Athens, during his lifetime. The individuals who exhibited his dramatic remains on the Attic stage were his sons Euphorion and Bion: the former of whom was, in B. C. 431, victorious with a tetralogy over Sophocles and Euripides (Argum. Eurip. Med.), and in addition to this is said to have gained four victories with dramatic pieces of his father's never before represented. (Blomfield, ad Argum. Agam. p. 20.) Philocles also, the son of a sister of Aeschylus, was victorious over the King Oedipus of Sophocles, probably with a tragedy of his uncle's. (Argum. Soph. Oed. Tyr.) From and by means of these persons arose what was called the Tragic School of Aeschylus, which continued for the space of 125 years.

We have hitherto spoken of Aeschylus as a poet only; but it must not be forgotten that he was also highly renowned as a warrior. His first achievements as a soldier were in the battle of Marathon, in which his brother Cynaegeirus and himself so highly distinguished themselves, that their exploits were commemorated with a descriptive painting in the theatre of Athens, which was thought to be much older than the statue there erected in honour of Aeschylus. (Paus. i. 21. §2.) The epitaph which he wrote on himself, proves that he considered his share in that battle as the most glorious achievement of his life, though he was also engaged at Artemisium, Salamis, and Plataea. (Paus. i. 14. §4.) All his family, indeed, were distinguished for bravery. His younger brother Ameinias (Herod, viii. 84; Diod. xi. 25) was noted as having commenced the attack on the Persian ships at Salamis, and at Marathon no one was so perseveringly brave as Cynaegeirus. (Herod, vi. 114.) Hence we may not unreasonably suppose, that the gratitude of the Athenians for such services contributed somewhat to a due appreciation of the poet's merits, and to the tragic victory which he gained soon after the battle of Marathon (B. C. 484) and before that of Salamis. Nor can we wonder at the peculiar vividness and spirit with which he portrays the "pomp and circumstance" of war, as in the Persae, and the "Seven against Thebes," describing its incidents and actions as one who had really been an actor in scenes such as he paints.

The style of Aeschylus is bold, energetic, and sublime, full of gorgeous imagery, and magnificent expressions such as became the elevated characters of his dramas, and the ideas he wished to express. (Aristoph. Ran. 934.) This sublimity of diction was however sometimes carried to an extreme, which made his language turgid and inflated, so that as Quintilian (x. 1) says of him, "he is grandiloquent to a fault." In the turn of his expressions, the poetical predominates over the syntactical. He was peculiarly fond of metaphorical phrases and strange compounds, and obsolete language, so that he was much more epic in his language than either Sophocles or Euripides, and excelled in displaying strong feelings and impulses, and describing the awful and the terrible, rather than in exhibiting the workings of the human mind under the influence of complicated and various motives. But notwithstanding the general elevation of his style, the subordinate characters in his plays, as the watchman in the Agamemnon, and the nurse of Orestes in the Choephoroe, are made to use language fitting their station, and less removed from that of common life.

The characters of Aeschylus, like his diction, are sublime and majestic,—they were gods and heroes of colossal magnitude, whose imposing aspect could be endured by the heroes of Marathon and Salamis, but was too awful for the contemplation of the next generation, who complained that Aeschylus' language was not human. (Aristoph. Ran. 1056.) Hence the general impressions produced by the poetry of Aeschylus were rather of a religious than of a moral nature: his personages being both in action and suffering, superhuman, and therefore not always fitted to teach practical