2. Eunpldes, near the end of h15 hfe. left Athens in voluntary exlie and died m MacedoOla at the court of KIng Archelaus. There 15 reason to beheve that he left because he had constantly falled to wm cnncal approval m Athens and because he despatred of the hopeless course wmch ms CIty had been followmg smce the time of Pendes The bIOgraphers doubtless apphed the analogy of Eunpldes-AtheIl3-AISihe-.. 2 ,. "INTRODUCTION ,. The defeats are real, but they do not tally, chronologIcally, with the VISitS to SICIly; on the contrary, after losmg to Sophocles, Aeschylus stayed m Athens and won first prize with The Seven against Thebes and its related dramas the next year, which IS qUlte dIfferent from gomg off to SIcily in a huff. If one may guess at why he went to SICIly, It was because SICIly was the Amenca of that day, the new Greek world, nch, generous, and young, with ItS own artIsts but WIthout the tradItion of perfected culture whIch Old Greece had built up, and It attracted Pmdar, Bacchyhdes, SImomdes, and Aeschylus much as America has attracted Enghsh men of letters from DIckens, Thackeray, and Wilde down to the present day. We do not know much about the personal character of Aeschylus and can make lIttle cntical use of what we do know. The epItaph shows he was proud of hIS military record, but this scarcely helps us to understand The Persians, The Seven against Thebes, or Agamemnon. We must approach Aeschylus, not from the biographIes, but from hIS own plays Early Tragedy palace of Agamemnon) Mycenae; Steslchorus and Simomdes, Sparta, Pmdar, Amyclae (which comes to the same thmg) , Aeschylus, Argos, doubtless for pohucal reasons Ste5lchorus called the nurse of Orestes Laodameta, Pmdar, Arsmoe, Aeschylus, C~,etc. " 7 " «ABSCHYLUS" « 9 " WIth wIll and temper of theIr own; but if theIr Olen lllSlSt, they must give way. Force them and they love. Cassandra, Clytaemestra's fOIl and rIval, has seen her CIty and people WIped out by Agamemnon, her father and brothers butchered by hIS followers, but she chugs to hun. So Briseis ill the Iliad cllllgs to AchIlles, who has personally kdled her husband, and so Sophocles makes hIS Tecmessa protest to Alas 7• Pmdar Pyth II :1:1~S, trans lattunore. c 12 ,. "INTRODUCTION :0 that she loves hIm. for she has no one else. since he has destroyed her home. s Not so Clytaemestra, who, lrke Helen her SIster, chooses her own loves. Agam, the code obvlOusly allowed the warlord, marned or unmarned, to have the comforts of a captIve mIstress on campaIgn But if Clytaemestra dId not like a code, she would s,nash it. WIth her "male strength of heart 10 its hIgh confidence," she steps boldly from the sphere of women's actIon mto that of men;9 like a kmg, she handles the city 10 her lord's absence, and to her the hostIle and SUSpICIOUS chorus turns WIth unwillmg admiratioa. When the chorus doubts her intelligences, agam when after the murder they openly challenge her. she faces them down and SIlences them; and It IS only on the appearance of Aegisthus. whom they despIse as they cannot despise Clyt...