Aeschylus

Born in Eleusis around 525/524 BCE, Aeschylus was the earliest of the great Greek tragedians whose plays survive. Ancient sources and standard reference works describe him as a foundational figure in Greek drama, and later critics often credit him with giving tragedy greater scale and power.

He lived through the Persian Wars and is said to have fought at Marathon, an experience that echoes in The Persians, one of the oldest surviving plays in the European tradition. Among the works that remain are Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, and the Oresteia trilogy—Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides—which explores revenge, justice, and the movement from private violence to civic law.

Aeschylus died around 456/455 BCE in Gela, Sicily. Only a small part of his output survives, but his influence has been enormous: for many readers and theatergoers, he is the writer who helped turn tragedy into one of the central forms of Western literature.