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Aeschylus

Aeschylus

0

Near balanceFormula-derived score

Athenian tragic poet whose seven surviving plays, especially the Oresteia, reach the public through Loebs, the Medicean manuscript, festivals, and UNESCO theatres. The most recent verified record is “Loeb Libation Bearers prints a revenge-instruction that a blood debt must be paid in blood” (1 April 1922), linked to the driver Judicial Independence.

Sources: [1][2][3][4][5]+12

Civic tragedy as a public argument about feud and courttransmitted seven-play canon rather than a verified autograph corpusmodern festival and UNESCO theatres treated as conservation and performance not as a 458 didascalia

Impact

Not rated yet: the verified records linked to this person, without a numeric impact.

Editorial assessment (context, not the score)

The dossier is not a marble bust and not a claim that tragedy is only ideology. The heaviest documented costs in the later public record are transmission loss, a disputed heading, revenge teaching, a gendered court settlement as later named, and war-poster uses of Persians. The offsets are printed and digital texts, festivals, and listed theatres.

He did not file a 1987 nomination or a 1981 first night. Byzantine schoolbooks may have over-filtered him; 1990s posters over-weaponised Persians. Confidence is high on the books and listings, medium on civic readings of the Eumenides, low on any vita anecdote.

Indicators affected

Indicators this person’s verified facts reach. No score contribution is assigned; the observed state is the indicator’s own reading.

Accountability & contradictions

Claims against the record, the type of responsibility, and what is disputed.

What could change this assessment

  • 4 linked facts have no assessed welfare direction yet.
  • Lifetime coverage has not been assessed: the record reflects stored facts only (1518–2015).

Causal path

Person → Fact → Driver → Indicator. Select a path to inspect its factors; the full network opens on demand.

Timeline

The most relevant dated facts, newest first.

Evidence & methodology

How the record is sourced and how the score is derived.

30 of 30 linked facts verified, drawing on 17 distinct sources (1518–2015).

Sources include The Guardian, Harvard University Press, UNESCO World Heritage Centre, Perseus Digital Library / Tufts, Faber & Faber, Royal National Theatre, Oxford University Press, Royal Shakespeare Company.

Sources (showing 8 of 17)

  1. 1.Perseus — Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Smyth)Perseus Digital Library / Tufts
  2. 2.Aeschylus, Loeb / Smyth scan (Internet Archive)Internet Archive / Loeb tradition
  3. 3.Harvard / Loeb — Aeschylus, ed. Sommerstein (2008)Harvard University Press
  4. 4.Guardian — modern Oresteia / Greek tragedy production reportingThe Guardian
  5. 5.UNESCO — Sanctuary of Asklepios at EpidaurusUNESCO World Heritage Centre
  6. 6.UNESCO — Acropolis, AthensUNESCO World Heritage Centre
  7. 7.Oxford Classical Texts seriesOxford University Press
  8. 8.Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana — FlorenceBiblioteca Medicea Laurenziana

The score is formula-derived (Factrail formula v1, version 1.0.0), not an editorial verdict. Read the methodology.

By the Factrail desk · Method: how we source and score · Last reviewed · Sources: 17

Expert analysis

An excerpt; the full analysis opens on request.

The first fact about Aeschylus is a source limit. The richest objects are seven plays in medieval books and a slope of stone in Athens. The richest stories about his life are late. A dossier that treats the tortoise as a coroner is a joke. A dossier that treats the Oresteia as a UN covenant is a sermon.

Loss of the majority; disputed Prometheus; blood-feud teaching; a court settlement that later feminist readers named as patriarchal; Persians as a 1990s war poster; choregic wealth; tourist crowding; vita cartoons. Those are dated as editions and receptions.

The offsets are dated: 1518 print, Laurenziana catalogues, 1922 Loeb, Perseus, 1972 OCT, 2008 Loeb, Cambridge play, Hellenic Festival, UNESCO Acropolis and Epidaurus, 1981 Harrison/Hall, 2010s Suppliants. Those gains do not restore the lost tetralogies. They are separate paths.

What the score must not say: that he legislated the Areopagus; that 1987 undid loss; that a male 1981 company is 458; that Persians is only lament or only jingoism; that Sommerstein settled every line. Complex contribution is the honest type. Confidence is high on 1518–2008 books and on 1981 and UNESCO dates, medium on civic-welfare readings of the Eumenides, low on the vita.

Related people are Sophocles, Euripides, Smyth, Murray, Harrison, Hall, Sommerstein, Page.

1922 is not 458. 1987 is not a choregic inscription. The Mediceus is a medieval book described in modern catalogues. Epidaurus is a listed theatre that still sells nights of tragedy. If those distinctions feel pedantic, they are the alternative to a bust and the alternative to a theory seminar that never names a date.

What would change the picture: a contemporary didascalia archive with autograph titles; a securely attributed Prometheus; a measured series from a named production. Until then the dossier refuses fake birthdays and refuses fake eternity. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates.

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