Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/62

44  who painted for him the first scenes which had ever been drawn according to the principles of linear perspective. (Vitruv. Praef. lib. vii.) He also furnished his actors with more suitable and magnificent dresses, with significant and various masks, and with the thick-soled cothurnus, to raise their statuestature [sic] to the height of heroes. He moreover bestowed so much attention on the choral dances, that he is said to have invented various figures himself, and to have instructed the choristers in them without the aid of the regular ballet-masters. (Athen. i. p. 21.) So great was Aeschylus' skill as a teacher in this respect, that Telestes, one of his choristers, was able to express by dance alone the various incidents of the play of the Seven against Thebes. (Athen. l. c.) The removal of all deeds of bloodshed and murder from the public view, in conformity with the rule of Horace (A. P. 185), is also said to have been a practice introduced by Aeschylus. (Philos. Vit. Apol. vi. 11.) With him also arose the usage of representing at the same time a trilogy of plays connected in subject, so that each formed one act, as it were, of a great whole, which might be compared with some of Shakespeare's historical plays. Even before the time of Aeschylus, it had been customary to contend for the prize of tragedy with three plays exhibited at the same time, but it was reserved for him to shew how each of three tragedies might be complete in itself, and independent of the rest, and nevertheless form a part of a harmonious and connected whole. The only example still extant of such a trilogy is the Oresteia, as it was called. A Satyrical play commonly followed each tragic trilogy, and it is recorded that Aeschylus was no less a master of the ludicrous than of the serious drama. (Paus. ii. 13. §5.)

Aeschylus is said to have written seventy tragedies. Of these only seven are extant, namely, the "Persians," the "Seven against Thebes," the "Suppliants," the "Prometheus," the "Agamemnon," the "Choephoroe," and "Eumenides;" the last three forming, as already remarked, the trilogy of the "Oresteia." The "Persians" was acted in B. C. 472, and the "Seven against Thebes" a year afterwards. The "Oresteia" was represented in B. C. 458; the "Suppliants" and the "Prometheus" were brought out some time between the "Seven against Thebes" and the "Oresteia." It has been supposed from some allusions in the "Suppliants," that this play was acted in B. C. 461, when Athens was allied with Argos.

The first edition of Aeschylus was printed at Venice, 1518, 8vo.; but parts of the Agamemnon and the Choephoroe are not printed in this edition, and those which are given, are made up into one play. Of the subsequent editions the best was by Stanley, Lond. 1663, fo. with the Scholia and a commentary, reedited by Butler. The best recent editions are by Wellauer, Lips. 1823, W. Dindorf, Lips. 1827, and Scholefield, Camb. 1830. There are numerous editions of various plays, of which those most worthy of mention are by Blomfield, Müller, Klausen, and Peile. The principal English translations are by Potter, Harford, and Medwin. (Petersen, De Aeschyli Vita et Fabulis, Havniae, 1814; Welcker, Die Aeschyl. Trilogie Prometheus, Darmstadt, 1824, Nachtrag zur Trilogie, Frankf. 1826, and Die Griech. Tragödien, Bonn, 1840; Klausen, Theologumena Aeschyli Tragici, Berol. 1829.)

 AE′SCHYLUS, of , an epic poet, who must have lived previous to the end of the second century of our aera, and whom Athenaeus calls a well-informed man. One of his poems bore the title "Amphitryon," and another "Messeniaca." A fragment of the former is preserved in Athenaeus. (xiii. p. 599.) According to Zenobius (v. 85), he had also written a work on proverbs. (compare Schneidewin, Praefat. Paroemiogr. p. xi.)

[L. S.]

 AE′SCHYLUS of, a contemporary of Cicero, and one of the most celebrated rhetoricians in Asia Minor. (Cic. Brut. 91, 95.)

 AE′SCHYLUS, of , was appointed by Alexander the Great one of the inspectors of the governors of that country after its conquest in B.C. 332. (Arrian, Anab. iii. 5; comp. Curt. iv. 8.) He is not spoken of again till B.C. 319, when he is mentioned as conveying in four ships six hundred talents of silver from Cilicia to Macedonia, which were detained at Ephesus by Antigonus, in order to pay his foreign mercenaries. (Diod. xviii. 52.)

 AESCULA′PIUS, the god of the medical art. In the Homeric poems Aesculapius does not appear to be considered as a divinity, but merely as a human being, which is indicated by the adjective, which is never given to a god. No allusion is made to his descent, and he is merely mentioned as the, and the father of Machaon and Podaleirius. (Il. ii. 731, iv. 194, xi. 518.) From the fact that Homer (Od. iv. 232) calls all those who practise the healing art descendants of Paeëon, and that Podaleirius and Machaon are called the sons of Aesculapius, it has been inferred, that Aesculapius and Paeëon are the same being, and consequently a divinity. But wherever Homer mentions the healing god, it is always Paeëon, and never Aesculapius; and as in the poet's opinion all physicians were descended from Paeëon, he probably considered Aesculapius in the same light. This supposition is corroborated by the fact, that in later times Paeëon was identified with Apollo, and that Aesculapius is universally described as a descendant of Apollo. The two sons of Aesculapius in the Iliad, were the physicians in the Greek army, and are described as ruling over Tricca, Ithome, and Oechalia. (Il. ii. 729.) According to Eustathius (ad Hom. p. 330), Lapithes was a son of Apollo and Stilbe, and Aesculapius was a descendant of Lapithes. This tradition seems to be based on the same groundwork as the more common one, that Aesculapius was a son of Apollo and Coronis, the daughter of Phlegyas, who is a descendant of Lapithes. (Apollod. iii. 10. §3; Pind. Pyth. iii. 14, with the Schol.)

The common story then goes on as follows. When Coronis was with child by Apollo, she became enamoured with Ischys, an Arcadian, and Apollo informed of this by a raven, which he had set to watch her, or, according to Pindar, by his own prophetic powers, sent his sister Artemis to kill Coronis. Artemis accordingly destroyed Coronis in her own house at Lacereia in Thessaly, on the shore of lake Baebia. (Comp. Hom. Hymn. 27. 3.) According to Ovid (Met. ii. 605, &c.) and Hyginus (Poet. Astr. ii. 40), it was Apollo himself who killed Coronis and Ischys. When the body of Coronis was to be burnt, Apollo, or, according to others (Paus. ii. 26. §5), Hermes, 