11/1/07 - Classical Literature - Aeschylus: Zeus, the 'ephemeros' nature of human life, and Aeschylus

1. Aeschylus

- born c. 525 BC
- first tragic production: 490
- fought in the battle of Marathon in 490 and probably at Salamis in 480
- first victory at the Great Dionysia in 484
- 472: Persians, the first complete tragedy that survives
- visited Sicily in the 470s
- 467: production of Seven Against Thebes (first prize)
- 463 (?): The Suppliant Maidens (firs prize, defeating Sophocles)
- 458: production of the Oresteia (first prize)
- died in Sicily in 456
- Prometheus ?

2. Chronology of Aeschylus' Agamemnon

1-39: Prologos
40-103: Entry anapaests
104-257: Parodos
258-354: First episode (Clytemnestra and chorus)
355-488: First stasimon
489-680: Second episode (Herald and chorus, Clytemnestra)
681-781: Second stasimon
782-809: Entry anapaests (Agamemnon and chorus)
810-974: Third episode (Agamemnon and Clytemnestra; silent chorus and silent Cassandra)
975-1034: Third stasimon
1035-1330: Fourth episode (Clytemnestra and chorus, silent Cassandra) [1072-1177: Amoibaion (Cassandra and chorus)]
1331-1406: Choral anapaests; Agamemnon cries out offstage; reaction of the chorus
1407-1576: Epirrhematic composition (Clytemnestra, chorus)
1577-1648: Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, chorus
1649-end: Exodus

3. From Epic and Lyric and Drama: Ephemeros-Concept of the archaic period and Theodice

The Oresteia is the first trilogy of Greek tragedy that survives: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers and Eumenides. Agamemnon, like all Greek tragedies, reflects on a sense of difference between man and the gods. Man cannot know the future; they must have the ability to suffer; they are subject to the will of the gods. Greek tragedies represent an aspect of this notion: "what is going to happen to me?" and "if gods have the power to change me every day, what am I to do?" Each poet has different but incomplete answers.

"Such is the way the gods have spun life for wretched mortals, that they should live among sorrows, but the gods themselves are without care. For two urns are set on Zeus; floor of gifts that he gives, the one of ills, the other of blessings. To whomever Zeus who delights in thunder gives a mixed lot, that meets now with evil, now with good; but to whomever he gives only from the urn of sorrows, him he makes to be degraded by man, and evil hunger drives him over the face of the sacred earth, and he wanders honoured neither by gods nor by mortals."
[Homer, Iliad 24, 525-533]

[Semonides from Amorgos Fr. I, 1-24; Theognis 133-142]

"Creatures of a day! What is someone? What is not?
Man is a dream of a shadow."
[Pindar, Pythian 8, 95f]