order, whose traditional political prominence, however decreased, was formally
extinguished with the reform of the Areopagus in 462–461. Our oldest extant tragedy
concerns an event without which that transformation would not have been possible,
the triumph of Greece in the Persian Wars. What makes the play more than a national
and patriotic celebration of the heroic freedom fighters of Marathon and Salamis
(Aeschylus himself had fought at Marathon) is that events are set entirely in Persia
and no individual Greek is named. A chorus of Persian elders and Atossa, the mother
of Xerxes, are anxious about the fate of the expedition. Atossa makes libations before
the tomb of her dead husband Darius, whose ghost then appears and when informed
of the disaster castigates Xerxes for rashness and folly, particularly remarking his
impiety in seeking to fetter the Hellespont and in burning the temples of the Greeks.
Old oracles are being fulfilled through the behaviour of his son: ‘when man makes
haste the god assists’ (l. 742): human folly accelerates the fulfilment of the gods’ plans.
Darius also sees divine justice in the fate of the Persians.
they wait; and there wait too
Ruin and untold pain, which they must yet endure –
The just reward of pride and godless insolence.
Marching through Hellas, without scruple they destroyed
Statues of gods, burned temples; levelled with the ground
Altars and holy precincts, now one heap of rubble.
Therefore their sacrilege is matched in suffering.
And more will follow; for the well-spring of their pain
Is not yet dry; soon new disaster gushes forth.
On the Plataean plain the Dorian lance shall pour
Blood in unmeasured sacrifice; dead heaped on dead
Shall bear dumb witness to three generations hence
That man is mortal, and must learn to curb his pride.
For pride will blossom; soon its ripening kernel is
Infatuation; and its bitter harvest, tears.
(Aeschylus, Persae, 806–820)Xerxes then returns; the fallen prince, now dressed in rags, laments the fate of the slain.
Historically, Darius had been as ambitious as Xerxes, but Aeschylus with a poet’s
licence idealises him so that he appears as a wise old king. The downfall of the Persian
enterprise results more from the envy of the gods than from the prowess of the Greeks.
Hybris, bringing in its wake ate(infatuation or folly), begets its inevitable nemesis. But
the pride and fall are not represented complacently. Aeschylus humanises the Persians
to the extent that we are moved to reflect upon the perilous insecurity of any mighty
endeavour and upon the radical instability of human fortune. It may be useful to reflect
150 THE GREEKS