and who had felt them with all the emotions of a patriotic spirit. His epitaph speaks only of his fame in the battle of Marathon, not of his glories in poetic contests.[1] Æschylus belonged completely to the race of the warriors of Marathon, in the sense which this appellation bore in the time of Aristophanes; those patriotic and heroic Athenians, of the ancient stamp, from whose manly and honourable character sprang all the glory and greatness which were so rapidly developed in Athens after the Persian war.
Æschylus, like almost all the great masters of poetry in ancient Greece, was a poet by profession; he had chosen the exercise of the tragic art as the business of his life. This exercise of art was combined with the training of choruses for religious solemnities. The tragic, like the comic, poets were essentially chorus teachers. When Æschylus desired to represent a tragic poem, he was obliged to repair, at the proper time, to the Archon, who presided over the festivals of Bacchus,[2] and obtain a chorus from him. If this public functionary had the requisite confidence in the poet, he granted him the chorus; that is to say, he assigned him one of the choruses which were raised, maintained, and fitted out by the wealthy and ambitious citizens, as choregi, in the name of the tribes or Phylæ of the people. The principal business of Æschylus then was to practise this chorus in all the dances and songs which were to be performed in his tragedy; and it is stated that Æschylus employed no assistant for this purpose, but arranged and conducted the whole himself.
Thus far the tragic was upon the same footing as the lyric, especially the dithyrambic, poet, since the latter received his dithyrambic chorus in the same manner, and was likewise required to instruct it. The tragic poet, however, also required actors, who were paid, not by the choregus, but by the state, and who were assigned by lot to the poet, in case he was not already provided. For some poets had actors, who were attached to them, and who were peculiarly practised in their pieces; thus Cleandrus and Myniscus acted for Æschylus. The practising or rehearsal of the piece was always considered the most important, because the public and official part of the business. Whoever thus brought out upon the stage a piece which had not been performed before, obtained the rewards offered by the state for it, or the prize, if the play was successful. The poet, who merely composed it in the
- ↑ Cynegeirus, the enthusiastic fighter of Marathon, is called the brother of Æschylus: it is certain that his father was named Euphorion, Herod. VI. 114. with Valckenaer's note. On the other hand, Ameinias, who began the battle of Salamis, cannot well have been a brother of Æschylus, since he belonged to the deme of Pallene, while Æschylus belonged to the deme of Eleusis.
- ↑ This was for the great Dionysia, the first Archon, ὁ ἄρχων κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν; for the Lenea, the second, the basileus.
