# Aeschylus 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. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates. Keep Loebs, the Mediceus, UNESCO theatres, and the 1981 Oresteia on separate dates. Sources used in this catalog include [Harvard University](/organizations/harvard-university) Press — Aeschylus Loeb volumes (https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674991613); Aeschylus, Loeb / Smyth scan (Internet Archive) (https://archive.org/details/aeschylus01aescuoft); Perseus — Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Smyth) (https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0003); Britannica — Oresteia (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Oresteia); UNESCO — Acropolis, Athens (https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/404/); Hellenic Ministry of Culture — English portal (https://www.culture.gov.gr/en/SitePages/default.aspx). ## Dated facts - 2015: Twenty-first-century stages restage the Suppliants as a refugee play. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-suppliants-refugee-reception. Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2016/oct/06/suppliant-women-review-royal-lyceum-edinburgh, https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/21/theatre1. - 2008: Sommerstein and standard handbooks state that almost no contemporaneous personal archive of Aeschylus survives. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-personal-vita-gap. Sources: https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/classical-literature-biographies/aeschylus, https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674996274. - 2008: Sommerstein’s Loeb and standard accounts mark Prometheus Bound as disputed within the corpus. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-prometheus-authorship-dispute. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Prometheus-Bound-play-by-Aeschylus, https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674996274. - 2008: Alan H. Sommerstein’s Loeb Aeschylus replaces Smyth as the series’ public English. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-sommerstein-loeb-2008. Sources: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/classical-review/, https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674996274. - 1993: Late-twentieth-century productions use Persians as a West-versus-Asia war text. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-persians-as-war-propaganda-reception. Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/21/theatre1, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0011. - 1988: Modern festival and site interpretation records ancient and modern theatre crowds as a public-health crowding fact. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-health-dionysia-crowd-as-modern-account. Sources: https://www.greekfestival.gr/en/, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/491/. - 1988: UNESCO lists the Sanctuary of Asklepios at Epidaurus, including the ancient theatre still used for tragedy. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-epidaurus-unesco-1988. Sources: https://www.greekfestival.gr/en/, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/491/. - 1987: Mass tourism to the Acropolis south slope captures rent from the tragic landscape. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-tourism-acropolis-theatre. Sources: https://www.culture.gov.gr/en/SitePages/default.aspx, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/404/. - 1987: Perseus publishes a public Persians, the surviving play about a Persian defeat. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-persians-perseus-public. Sources: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0011, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aeschylus-Greek-dramatist. - 1987: UNESCO lists the Acropolis of Athens, including the Theatre of Dionysus landscape. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-unesco-acropolis-1987. Sources: https://www.culture.gov.gr/en/SitePages/default.aspx, https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/404/. - 1987: The Perseus Digital Library publishes a public Agamemnon text from the Smyth tradition. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-perseus-agamemnon. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Oresteia, https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0003. - 1981: Modern productions and feminist criticism record the Eumenides’ court as a patriarchal settlement. https://factrail.ai/facts/ae-eumenides-gender-settlement. Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/21/theatre1, https://www.faber.co.uk/product/9780571117072-the-oresteia/. ## Methodology https://factrail.ai/methodology Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/aeschylus