historical significance and because of its literary accomplishment. The play is concerned with the Persian
defeat at the battle of Salamis, which occurred only seven and a half years before The Persians was
produced. Very many members of the original audience and cast, therefore, had witnessed or even
participated in the battle. Aeschylus’ brother had fought and died at Marathon and he himself is likely to
have fought both at Marathon and at Salamis. He was, then, an eyewitness to the event that The Persians
celebrates.
The most remarkable feature, however, of Aeschylus’ play is that it is not at all overtly celebratory. In
fact, the play is set in Persia and has an entirely Persian cast of characters: Xerxes, Xerxes’ mother, the
ghost of Xerxes’ father Darius, a Persian messenger, and a chorus of Persian elders. Following the
conventions of Attic drama, these characters were impersonated by a group of 14 male Athenian citizens:
12 members of the chorus, and two actors who divided the four remaining roles between them. Later in
Aeschylus’ life the convention was changed to allow a third actor, but fifth-century drama never exceeded
that limit and never permitted the use of female performers. In other words, in The Persians no more than
two characters, in addition to the chorus, could appear before the audience at any one time. That does not
mean that Aeschylus’ play, or Attic tragedy in general, was in any way austere or unsophisticated. The
costumes would have been quite elaborate and would have emphasized the oriental luxury of the Persian
court. The drama was composed in verse of uncommon complexity and expressiveness, some of it recited
and some of it sung to musical accompaniment. In addition, the chorus accompanied much of its sung
contribution with intricately choreographed dance. Attic drama, then, is more closely akin to modern
opera than to the plays of Henrik Ibsen or Tennessee Williams. Indeed, The Persians concludes with an
extended and impassioned lamentation over the defeat at Salamis, sung by the chorus and the actor who
played Xerxes and accompanied by the dance of the chorus. During the course of the play, no individual
Greek is named by the Persian characters. The Greek victory, therefore, is presented as the result of a
collective effort on the part of the Greeks, and especially the Athenians. In contrast, on the Persian side,
responsibility for the defeat is firmly lodged with the individual Xerxes, whose earlier behavior is shown
to have been reckless and arrogant, and therefore deserving of punishment by the gods. This will have
been pleasing to the democratic Athenian audience, who are implicitly represented as the agents of the
divine will.
Accordingly, the democratic Athenian audience rewarded Aeschylus by conferring first prize on The
Persians and the other plays with which Aeschylus competed in 472 BC. Attic tragedies were performed
at the Dionysia as part of a competition with firm rules that date back to the second half of the sixth
century. The competition took place in a theater built next to the sanctuary of Dionysus, on the south slope
of the acropolis. In the time of Aeschylus, the seating in the theater consisted of wooden bleachers
arranged in banks on three sides of the performance area (called the orchestra or “dance-floor”). Later,
extensive stone seating was constructed, on a semi-circular plan, which accommodated more than 10,000
spectators (see figure 47). These were, then, performances that attracted a very large audience. They were
part of an important religious festival and, like religious festivals generally in the ancient Greek world,
the festival of the Dionysia was organized by and for the polis. The poets who hoped to compete in the
tragic competition submitted their work to a public official called an archon who selected the three poets
whose work would be granted public performance. This official served a one-year term of office to
which he was elected by popular vote; after 487 BC, however, he was named to his one-year term by the
still more democratic method of being chosen by lot. The poets who presented their work to him
submitted not a single play but a group of four plays, consisting of three tragedies and a satyr play. A satyr
play is a burlesque drama in which serious heroic characters are confronted by a chorus of satyrs,
mythical creatures who are mostly human but who have equine appurtenances and bestial appetites (figure
43 ). During the course of the festival, the four plays by each of the three dramatists were performed and