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171-480: Aeschylus ( UK : / ˈ iː s k ɪ l ə s / , US : / ˈ ɛ s k ɪ l ə s / ; Ancient Greek : Αἰσχύλος Aischýlos ; c.  525 /524 – c.  456 /455 BC) was an ancient Greek tragedian often described as the father of tragedy . Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle , he expanded

342-549: A century as Received Pronunciation (RP). However, due to language evolution and changing social trends, some linguists argue that RP is losing prestige or has been replaced by another accent, one that the linguist Geoff Lindsey for instance calls Standard Southern British English. Others suggest that more regionally-oriented standard accents are emerging in England. Even in Scotland and Northern Ireland, RP exerts little influence in

513-559: A chapter in a continuous dramatic narrative. The Oresteia is the only extant example of this type of connected trilogy, but there is evidence that Aeschylus often wrote such trilogies. The satyr plays that followed his tragic trilogies also drew from myth. The satyr play Proteus , which followed the Oresteia , treated the story of Menelaus' detour in Egypt on his way home from the Trojan War . It

684-402: A confederate alliance of Greek city-states was formed. It had the power to send envoys asking for assistance and to dispatch troops from the member states to defensive points after joint consultation. This was remarkable for the disjointed Greek world, especially since many of the city-states in attendance were still technically at war with each other. Initially the 'congress' agreed to defend

855-674: A constricted area, where Persian numbers would count for little. The battle at Artemisium had seen attempts to negate the Persian advantage in numbers, but ultimately the Allies may have realised that they needed an even more constricted channel in order to defeat the Persians. Therefore, by rowing into the Straits of Salamis to attack the Greeks, the Persians were playing into the Allies' hands. It seems probable that

1026-505: A council of war with the Persian fleet; Herodotus says this occurred at Phalerum . Artemisia , queen of Halicarnassus and commander of its naval squadron in Xerxes's fleet, tried to convince him to wait for the Allies to surrender believing that battle in the straits of Salamis was an unnecessary risk. Nevertheless, Xerxes and his chief advisor Mardonius pressed for an attack. It is difficult to explain exactly what eventually brought about

1197-398: A democratic Athens are praised. Prometheus Bound is attributed to Aeschylus by ancient authorities. Since the late 19th century, however, scholars have increasingly doubted this ascription, largely on stylistic grounds. Its production date is also in dispute, with theories ranging from the 480s BC to as late as the 410s. The play consists mostly of static dialogue. The Titan Prometheus

1368-518: A demonstration of his power the previous year, the majority of the Greek cities duly obliged. In Athens, however, the ambassadors were put on trial and then executed; in Sparta, they were simply thrown down a well. This meant that Sparta was also now effectively at war with Persia. Darius thus put together an amphibious task force under Datis and Artaphernes in 490 BC, which attacked Naxos , before receiving

1539-497: A full-scale invasion, it required long-term planning, stock-piling and conscription. Xerxes decided that the Hellespont would be bridged to allow his army to cross to Europe, and that a canal should be dug across the isthmus of Mount Athos (rounding which headland, a Persian fleet had been destroyed in 492 BC). These were both feats of exceptional ambition, which would have been beyond any other contemporary state. By early 480 BC,

1710-501: A greater movement, normally [əʊ], [əʉ] or [əɨ]. Dropping a morphological grammatical number , in collective nouns , is stronger in British English than North American English. This is to treat them as plural when once grammatically singular, a perceived natural number prevails, especially when applying to institutional nouns and groups of people. The noun 'police', for example, undergoes this treatment: Police are investigating

1881-528: A guide. The Furies track him down, and Athena steps in and declares that a trial is necessary. Apollo argues Orestes' case, and after the judges (including Athena) deliver a tie vote, Athena announces that Orestes is acquitted. She renames the Furies The Eumenides (The Good-spirited, or Kindly Ones), and extols the importance of reason in the development of laws. As in The Suppliants , the ideals of

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2052-456: A huge new army with which he meant to completely subjugate Greece; however, in 486 BC, his Egyptian subjects revolted, indefinitely postponing any Greek expedition. Darius then died whilst preparing to march on Egypt, and the throne of Persia passed to his son Xerxes I. Xerxes crushed the Egyptian revolt, and very quickly restarted the preparations for the invasion of Greece. Since this was to be

2223-406: A lesser class or social status and often discounted or considered of a low intelligence. Another contribution to the standardisation of British English was the introduction of the printing press to England in the mid-15th century. In doing so, William Caxton enabled a common language and spelling to be dispersed among the entirety of England at a much faster rate. Samuel Johnson's A Dictionary of

2394-659: A major part in the formation of dramatic literature from the Renaissance to the present, specifically in French and Elizabethan drama. He also claims that their influence went beyond just drama and applies to literature in general, citing Milton and the Romantics. Eugene O'Neill 's Mourning Becomes Electra (1931), a trilogy of three plays set in America after the Civil War, is modeled after

2565-485: A message directly sent to Xerxes letting him know that much of the Greek fleet was stationed at Salamis), the Persian navy rowed into the Straits of Salamis and tried to block both entrances. In the cramped waters, the great Persian numbers were an active hindrance, as ships struggled to maneuver and became disorganized. Seizing the opportunity, the Greek fleet formed in line and achieved a victory. Xerxes retreated to Asia with much of his army, leaving Mardonius to complete

2736-703: A misunderstanding of the iconography on Aeschylus' tomb. Aeschylus' work was so respected by the Athenians that after his death his tragedies were the only ones allowed to be restaged in subsequent competitions. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles also became playwrights. The inscription on Aeschylus' gravestone makes no mention of his theatrical renown, commemorating only his military achievements: Αἰσχύλον Εὐφορίωνος Ἀθηναῖον τόδε κεύθει μνῆμα καταφθίμενον πυροφόροιο Γέλας· ἀλκὴν δ' εὐδόκιμον Μαραθώνιον ἄλσος ἂν εἴποι καὶ βαθυχαιτήεις Μῆδος ἐπιστάμενος Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of Euphorion,

2907-455: A more orderly fashion. Aeschylus claims that as the Persians approached (possibly implying that they were not already in the Straits at dawn), they heard the Greeks singing their battle hymn ( paean ) before they saw the Allied fleet: ὦ παῖδες Ἑλλήνων ἴτε ἐλευθεροῦτε πατρίδ᾽, ἐλευθεροῦτε δὲ παῖδας, γυναῖκας, θεῶν τέ πατρῴων ἕδη, θήκας τε προγόνων: νῦν ὑπὲρ πάντων ἀγών. O sons of

3078-488: A mountain path. Much of the Greek army retreated, before the Spartans and Thespians who had continued to block the pass were surrounded and killed. The simultaneous Battle of Artemisium was up to that point a stalemate; however, when news of Thermopylae reached them, the Allied fleet also retreated, since holding the straits of Artemisium was now a moot point. The Allied fleet now rowed from Artemisium to Salamis to assist with

3249-451: A nightmare in which she gives birth to a snake is recounted by the chorus. This leads her to order her daughter, Electra , to pour libations on Agamemnon's tomb (with the assistance of libation bearers) in hope of making amends. Orestes enters the palace pretending to bear news of his own death. Clytemnestra calls in Aegisthus to learn the news. Orestes kills them both. Orestes is then beset by

3420-404: A possibility. Xerxes had also positioned around 400 troops on the island known as Psyttaleia , in the middle of the exit from the straits, in order to kill or capture any Greeks who ended up there (as a result of shipwreck or grounding). Regardless of what time they entered the straits, the Persians did not move to attack the Allies until daylight. Since they were not planning to flee after all,

3591-648: A process called T-glottalisation . National media, being based in London, have seen the glottal stop spreading more widely than it once was in word endings, not being heard as "no [ʔ] " and bottle of water being heard as "bo [ʔ] le of wa [ʔ] er". It is still stigmatised when used at the beginning and central positions, such as later , while often has all but regained /t/ . Other consonants subject to this usage in Cockney English are p , as in pa [ʔ] er and k as in ba [ʔ] er. In most areas of England and Wales, outside

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3762-662: A procession which was followed by a competition of boys singing dithyrambs , and all culminated in a pair of dramatic competitions. The first competition Aeschylus would have participated in involved three playwrights each presenting three tragedies and one satyr play . A second competition involving five comedic playwrights followed, and the winners of both competitions were chosen by a panel of judges. Aeschylus entered many of these competitions, and various ancient sources attribute between seventy and ninety plays to him. Only seven tragedies attributed to him have survived intact: The Persians , Seven Against Thebes , The Suppliants ,

3933-477: A range of blurring and ambiguity". Variations exist in formal (both written and spoken) English in the United Kingdom. For example, the adjective wee is almost exclusively used in parts of Scotland, north-east England, Northern Ireland, Ireland, and occasionally Yorkshire , whereas the adjective little is predominant elsewhere. Nevertheless, there is a meaningful degree of uniformity in written English within

4104-511: A regional accent or dialect. However, about 2% of Britons speak with an accent called Received Pronunciation (also called "the King's English", "Oxford English" and " BBC English" ), that is essentially region-less. It derives from a mixture of the Midlands and Southern dialects spoken in London in the early modern period. It is frequently used as a model for teaching English to foreign learners. In

4275-656: A ruling dynasty in Argos. The other 49 Danaids are absolved of their murders, and married off to unspecified Argive men. The satyr play following this trilogy was titled Amymone , after one of the Danaids. Besides a few missing lines, the Oresteia of 458 BC is the only complete trilogy of Greek plays by any playwright still extant (of Proteus , the satyr play which followed, only fragments are known). Agamemnon and The Libation Bearers ( Choephoroi ) and The Eumenides together tell

4446-600: A strong moral and religious emphasis. The Oresteia trilogy concentrated on humans' position in the cosmos relative to the gods and divine law and divine punishment. Aeschylus' popularity is evident in the praise that the comic playwright Aristophanes gives him in The Frogs , produced some 50 years after Aeschylus' death. Aeschylus appears as a character in the play and claims, at line 1022, that his Seven against Thebes "made everyone watching it to love being warlike". He claims, at lines 1026–7, that with The Persians he "taught

4617-451: A strong position to force a Greek surrender; this seemed the only hope of concluding the campaign in that season. In contrast, by avoiding destruction, or as Themistocles hoped, by crippling the Persian fleet, the Greeks could effectively thwart the invasion. However, it was strategically not necessary for the Persians to actually fight this battle at Salamis. According to Herodotus, Queen Artemisia of Caria pointed this out to Xerxes in

4788-485: A trilogy about the madness and subsequent suicide of the Greek hero Ajax . Aeschylus seems to have written about Odysseus ' return to Ithaca after the war (including his killing of his wife Penelope 's suitors and its consequences) in a trilogy consisting of The Soul-raisers , Penelope , and The Bone-gatherers . Other suggested trilogies touched on the myth of Jason and the Argonauts ( Argô , Lemnian Women , Hypsipylê ),

4959-483: A wedge of Greek ships pushed through the Persians' lines, splitting the fleet in two. According to Plutarch, Ariabignes was killed by Ameinias and Socles ( Greek : Σωκλής ) of Pallene. When Ariabignes attempted to board on their ship, they hit him with their spears, and thrust him into the sea. Plutarch also mentions that it was Artemisia who recognized Ariabignes' body floating among the shipwrecks and brought it back to Xerxes. Herodotus recounts that Artemisia ,

5130-725: Is also due to London-centric influences. Examples of R-dropping are car and sugar , where the R is not pronounced. British dialects differ on the extent of diphthongisation of long vowels, with southern varieties extensively turning them into diphthongs, and with northern dialects normally preserving many of them. As a comparison, North American varieties could be said to be in-between. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are usually preserved, and in several areas also /oː/ and /eː/, as in go and say (unlike other varieties of English, that change them to [oʊ] and [eɪ] respectively). Some areas go as far as not diphthongising medieval /iː/ and /uː/, that give rise to modern /aɪ/ and /aʊ/; that is, for example, in

5301-540: Is assumed, based on the evidence provided by a catalogue of Aeschylean play titles, scholia , and play fragments recorded by later authors, that three other extant plays of his were components of connected trilogies: Seven Against Thebes was the final play in an Oedipus trilogy, and The Suppliants and Prometheus Bound were each the first play in a Danaid trilogy and Prometheus trilogy, respectively. Scholars have also suggested several completely lost trilogies, based on known play titles. A number of these treated myths about

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5472-467: Is based on British English, but has more influence from American English , often grouped together due to their close proximity. British English, for example, is the closest English to Indian English, but Indian English has extra vocabulary and some English words are assigned different meanings. Battle of Salamis To block the Persian advance, a small force of Greeks blocked the pass of Thermopylae , while an Athenian-dominated allied navy engaged

5643-548: Is bound to a rock throughout, which is his punishment from the Olympian Zeus for providing fire to humans. The god Hephaestus and the Titan Oceanus and the chorus of Oceanids all express sympathy for Prometheus' plight. Prometheus is met by Io , a fellow victim of Zeus' cruelty. He prophesies her future travels, revealing that one of her descendants will free Prometheus. The play closes with Zeus sending Prometheus into

5814-402: Is brought on stage and Hector's body is placed in one scale and gold in the other. The dynamic dancing of the chorus of Trojans when they enter with Priam is reported by Aristophanes . The children of Niobe , the heroine, have been slain by Apollo and Artemis because Niobe had gloated that she had more children than their mother, Leto . Niobe sits in silent mourning on stage during most of

5985-500: Is difficult to establish with any certainty. Herodotus presents the battle as though it occurred directly after the capture of Athens, but nowhere explicitly states as much. If Thermopylae/Artemisium occurred in September, then this may be the case, but it is probably more likely that the Persians spent two or three weeks capturing Athens, refitting the fleet, and resupplying. Clearly though, at some point after capturing Athens, Xerxes held

6156-769: Is included in style guides issued by various publishers including The Times newspaper, the Oxford University Press and the Cambridge University Press . The Oxford University Press guidelines were originally drafted as a single broadsheet page by Horace Henry Hart, and were at the time (1893) the first guide of their type in English; they were gradually expanded and eventually published, first as Hart's Rules , and in 2002 as part of The Oxford Manual of Style . Comparable in authority and stature to The Chicago Manual of Style for published American English ,

6327-415: Is not clear when, why or how this decision was made, but it is clear that they did take the battle to the Allies. Herodotus reports that there were 378 triremes in the Allied fleet, and then breaks the numbers down by city state (as indicated in the table). However, his numbers for the individual contingents only add up to 371. He does not explicitly say that all 378 fought at Salamis ("All of these came to

6498-497: Is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness; but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black ... Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world." The quotation from Aeschylus

6669-511: Is now northwest Germany and the northern Netherlands. The resident population at this time was generally speaking Common Brittonic —the insular variety of Continental Celtic , which was influenced by the Roman occupation. This group of languages ( Welsh , Cornish , Cumbric ) cohabited alongside English into the modern period, but due to their remoteness from the Germanic languages , influence on English

6840-490: Is that these ships had been a decoy sent to reconnoitre the northern exit from the straits, in case the arrival of the encircling Egyptian detachment was imminent (if indeed this also occurred). Another possibility (not exclusive of the former) is that the departure of the Corinthians triggered the final approach of the Persians, suggesting as it did that the Allied fleet was disintegrating. At any rate, if they indeed ever left,

7011-456: Is the case for English used by European Union institutions. In China, both British English and American English are taught. The UK government actively teaches and promotes English around the world and operates in over 200 countries . English is a West Germanic language that originated from the Anglo-Frisian dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers from various parts of what

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7182-427: Is uncertain; possibly the Allied ships were bulkier in construction, or that the ships were waterlogged since they had not been dried out in the winter (though there is no real evidence for either suggestion). Another suggestion is that the heaviness was caused by the weight of fully armored hoplite marines (20 fully armored hoplites would have weighed 2 tons). This 'heaviness', whatever its cause, would further reduce

7353-454: Is unlikely that the Allies would have rested one of their flanks against Persian occupied territory. It seems relatively certain that the Persian fleet was sent out to block the exit from the Straits the evening before the battle. Herodotus clearly believed that the Persian fleet actually entered the Straits at nightfall, planning to catch the Allies as they fled. However, modern historians have greatly debated this point, with some pointing out

7524-530: The Chambers Dictionary , and the Collins Dictionary record actual usage rather than attempting to prescribe it. In addition, vocabulary and usage change with time; words are freely borrowed from other languages and other varieties of English, and neologisms are frequent. For historical reasons dating back to the rise of London in the ninth century, the form of language spoken in London and

7695-574: The Iliad . Achilles sits in silent indignation over his humiliation at Agamemnon's hands for most of the play. Envoys from the Greek army attempt to reconcile Achilles to Agamemnon , but he yields only to Patroclus , who then battles the Trojans in Achilles' armour. The bravery and death of Patroclus are reported in a messenger's speech, which is followed by mourning. This play was based on books 18 and 19 and 22 of

7866-719: The Battle of Plataea in 479 BC. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschylus' war record and his contribution in Salamis. Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians , his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia. Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries , an ancient cult of Demeter based in his home town of Eleusis. According to Aristotle , Aeschylus

8037-550: The Battle of Salamis . It is unique among surviving Greek tragedies in that it describes a recent historical event. The Persians focuses on the popular Greek theme of hubris and blames Persia's loss on the pride of its king. It opens with the arrival of a messenger in Susa , the Persian capital, bearing news of the catastrophic Persian defeat at Salamis, to Atossa , the mother of the Persian King Xerxes . Atossa then travels to

8208-637: The East Midlands became standard English within the Court, and ultimately became the basis for generally accepted use in the law, government, literature and education in Britain. The standardisation of British English is thought to be from both dialect levelling and a thought of social superiority. Speaking in the Standard dialect created class distinctions; those who did not speak the standard English would be considered of

8379-525: The Furies , who avenge the murders of kin in Greek mythology. The third play addresses the question of Orestes' guilt. The Furies drive Orestes from Argos and into the wilderness. He makes his way to the temple of Apollo and begs Apollo to drive the Furies away. Apollo had encouraged Orestes to kill Clytemnestra, so he bears some of the guilt for the murder. Apollo sends Orestes to the temple of Athena with Hermes as

8550-571: The Great Dionysia . His family was wealthy and well established. His father, Euphorion, was said to be a member of the Eupatridae , the ancient nobility of Attica, but this might be a fiction invented by the ancients to account for the grandeur of Aeschylus' plays. As a youth, Aeschylus worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias , the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to

8721-536: The Iliad , and generally claim that the Persians could have launched no more than around 600 warships into the Aegean. However, very few appear to accept that there were this many ships at Salamis: most favour a number in the range 600–800. This is also the range given by adding the approximate number of Persian ships after Artemisium (~550) to the reinforcements (120) quantified by Herodotus. The overall Persian strategy for

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8892-567: The Iliad . It follows the Daughters of Nereus, the sea god, who lament Patroclus' death. A messenger tells how Achilles (perhaps reconciled to Agamemnon and the Greeks) slew Hector . After a brief discussion with Hermes , Achilles sits in silent mourning over Patroclus. Hermes then brings in King Priam of Troy , who wins over Achilles and ransoms his son's body in a spectacular coup de théâtre . A scale

9063-465: The Oresteia . Before writing his acclaimed trilogy, O'Neill had been developing a play about Aeschylus, and he noted that Aeschylus "so changed the system of the tragic stage that he has more claim than anyone else to be regarded as the founder (Father) of Tragedy." During his presidential campaign in 1968, Senator Robert F. Kennedy quoted the Edith Hamilton translation of Aeschylus on the night of

9234-484: The Royal Spanish Academy with Spanish. Standard British English differs notably in certain vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation features from standard American English and certain other standard English varieties around the world. British and American spelling also differ in minor ways. The accent, or pronunciation system, of standard British English, based in southeastern England, has been known for over

9405-486: The Scots language or Scottish Gaelic ). Each group includes a range of dialects, some markedly different from others. The various British dialects also differ in the words that they have borrowed from other languages. Around the middle of the 15th century, there were points where within the 5 major dialects there were almost 500 ways to spell the word though . Following its last major survey of English Dialects (1949–1950),

9576-560: The University of Leeds has started work on a new project. In May 2007 the Arts and Humanities Research Council awarded a grant to Leeds to study British regional dialects. The team are sifting through a large collection of examples of regional slang words and phrases turned up by the "Voices project" run by the BBC , in which they invited the public to send in examples of English still spoken throughout

9747-601: The West Country and other near-by counties of the UK, the consonant R is not pronounced if not followed by a vowel, lengthening the preceding vowel instead. This phenomenon is known as non-rhoticity . In these same areas, a tendency exists to insert an R between a word ending in a vowel and a next word beginning with a vowel. This is called the intrusive R . It could be understood as a merger, in that words that once ended in an R and words that did not are no longer treated differently. This

9918-424: The chorus . Aeschylus added a second actor, allowing for greater dramatic variety, while the chorus played a less important role. He is sometimes credited with introducing skenographia , or scene-decoration, though Aristotle gives this distinction to Sophocles. Aeschylus is also said to have made the costumes more elaborate and dramatic, and made his actors wear platform boots ( cothurni ) to make them more visible to

10089-603: The 21st century. RP, while long established as the standard English accent around the globe due to the spread of the British Empire , is distinct from the standard English pronunciation in some parts of the world; most prominently, RP notably contrasts with standard North American accents. In the 21st century, dictionaries like the Oxford English Dictionary , the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English ,

10260-464: The 470s BC, having been invited by Hiero I , tyrant of Syracuse , a major Greek city on the eastern side of the island. He produced The Women of Aetna during one of these trips (in honor of the city founded by Hieron), and restaged his Persians . By 473 BC, after the death of Phrynichus , one of his chief rivals, Aeschylus was the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition. In 472 BC, Aeschylus staged

10431-476: The Achaemenid fleet: The number 1,207 appears very early in the historical record (472 BC), and the Greeks appear to have genuinely believed they faced that many ships. Because of the consistency in the ancient sources, some modern historians are inclined to accept 1,207 as the size of the initial Persian fleet; others reject this number, with 1,207 being seen as more of a reference to the combined Greek fleet in

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10602-460: The Allied command was in-fighting, that the Peloponnesians were planning to evacuate that very night, and that to gain victory all the Persians needed to do was to block the straits. In performing this subterfuge, Themistocles seems to have been trying to bring about exactly the opposite; to lure the Persian fleet into the Straits. This was exactly the kind of news that Xerxes wanted to hear; that

10773-400: The Allied ships may also have made them more stable in the winds off the coast of Salamis, and made them less susceptible to ramming (or rather, less liable to sustain damage when rammed). The Persians preferred a battle in the open sea, where they could better utilize their own superior seamanship and numbers. For the Greeks, the only realistic hope of a victory was to draw the Persians into

10944-450: The Allies (who had waited patiently off the coast of Salamis for at least a week while Athens was captured) may have been in response to Persian offensive maneuvers. Possibly, a Persian army had been sent to march against the Isthmus in order to test the nerve of the fleet. Either way, when Xerxes received this news, he ordered his fleet to go out on patrol off the coast of Salamis, blocking

11115-455: The Allies spent the evening heatedly debating their course of action. The Peloponnesians were in favour of evacuating, and at this point, Themistocles attempted his ruse with Xerxes. It was only when Aristides , the exiled Athenian general arrived that night, followed by some deserters from the Persians, with news of the deployment of the Persian fleet, that the Peloponnesians accepted that they could not escape, and so would fight. However,

11286-411: The Allies would have been able to spend the night preparing for battle, and after a speech by Themistocles, the marines boarded and the ships made ready to sail. According to Herodotus, this was dawn, and as the Allies "were putting out to sea the barbarians immediately attacked them" . If the Persians only entered the straits at dawn, then the Allies would have had the time to take up their station in

11457-555: The Argive-Egyptian war threatened in the first play has transpired. King Pelasgus was killed during the war, and Danaus rules Argos. Danaus negotiates a settlement with Aegyptus, a condition of which requires his 50 daughters to marry the 50 sons of Aegyptus. Danaus secretly informs his daughters of an oracle which predicts that one of his sons-in-law would kill him. He orders the Danaids to murder their husbands therefore on their wedding night. His daughters agree. The Danaids would open

11628-508: The Athenian, who perished in the wheat-bearing land of Gela; of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can speak, and the long-haired Persian knows it well. The seeds of Greek drama were sown in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus , the god of wine. During Aeschylus' lifetime, dramatic competitions became part of the City Dionysia , held in spring. The festival opened with

11799-477: The Athenians might be willing to submit to him, and that he would be able to destroy the rest of the Allied fleet. Xerxes evidently took the bait, and the Persian fleet was sent out that evening to effect this block. Xerxes ordered a throne to be set up on the slopes of Mount Aigaleo (overlooking the straits), in order to watch the battle from a clear vantage point, and so as to record the names of commanders who performed particularly well. According to Herodotus,

11970-458: The Athenians to desire always to defeat their enemies." Aeschylus goes on to say, at lines 1039ff., that his plays inspired the Athenians to be brave and virtuous. Aeschylus' works were influential beyond his own time. Hugh Lloyd-Jones draws attention to Richard Wagner 's reverence of Aeschylus. Michael Ewans argues in his Wagner and Aeschylus. The Ring and the Oresteia (London: Faber. 1982) that

12141-454: The Corinthians soon returned to the battle. Approaching the Allied fleet in the crowded Straits, the Persians appear to have become disorganised and cramped in the narrow waters. Moreover, it would have become apparent that, far from disintegrating, the Greek fleet was lined up, ready to attack them. However, rather than attacking immediately, the Allies initially appeared to back their ships away as if in fear. According to Plutarch , this

12312-816: The English Language (1755) was a large step in the English-language spelling reform , where the purification of language focused on standardising both speech and spelling. By the early 20th century, British authors had produced numerous books intended as guides to English grammar and usage, a few of which achieved sufficient acclaim to have remained in print for long periods and to have been reissued in new editions after some decades. These include, most notably of all, Fowler's Modern English Usage and The Complete Plain Words by Sir Ernest Gowers . Detailed guidance on many aspects of writing British English for publication

12483-595: The Germanic schwein ) is the animal in the field bred by the occupied Anglo-Saxons and pork (like the French porc ) is the animal at the table eaten by the occupying Normans. Another example is the Anglo-Saxon cu meaning cow, and the French bœuf meaning beef. Cohabitation with the Scandinavians resulted in a significant grammatical simplification and lexical enrichment of the Anglo-Frisian core of English;

12654-483: The Greek fleet numbered only 220. The fleet was effectively under the command of Themistocles, but nominally led by the Spartan nobleman Eurybiades , as had been agreed at the congress in 481 BC. Although Themistocles had tried to claim leadership of the fleet, the other city states with navies objected, and so Sparta (which had no naval tradition) was given command of the fleet as a compromise. According to Herodotus,

12825-485: The Greeks that his epitaph commemorates his participation in the Greek victory at Marathon while making no mention of his success as a playwright. Aeschylus was born around 525 BC in Eleusis , a small town about 27 kilometres (17 mi) northwest of Athens , in the fertile valleys of western Attica . Some scholars argue that the date of Aeschylus's birth may be based on counting back 40 years from his first victory in

12996-471: The Greeks to fight the Persians. However, the Athenians did not have the manpower to fight on land and sea; and therefore combatting the Persians would require an alliance of Greek city states. In 481 BC, Xerxes sent ambassadors around Greece asking for earth and water, but made the very deliberate omission of Athens and Sparta. Support thus began to coalesce around these two leading states. A congress of city states met at Corinth in late autumn of 481 BC, and

13167-486: The Greeks, go, Liberate your country, liberate Your children, your women, the seats of your fathers' gods, And the tombs of your forebears: now is the struggle for all things. Herodotus recounts that, according to the Athenians, as the battle began the Corinthians hoisted their sails and began sailing away from the battle, northwards up the straits. However, he also says that all the other Greeks denied this story. If this did in fact occur, one possible interpretation

13338-518: The Isthmus of Corinth, demolishing the single road that led through it, and building a wall across it. This strategy was flawed, however, unless the Allied fleet was able to prevent the Persian fleet from transporting troops across the Saronic Gulf. In a council-of-war called once the evacuation of Athens was complete, the Corinthian naval commander Adeimantus argued that the fleet should assemble off

13509-891: The Oxford Manual is a fairly exhaustive standard for published British English that writers can turn to in the absence of specific guidance from their publishing house. British English is the basis of, and very similar to, Commonwealth English . Commonwealth English is English as spoken and written in the Commonwealth countries , though often with some local variation. This includes English spoken in Australia , Malta , New Zealand , Nigeria , and South Africa . It also includes South Asian English used in South Asia, in English varieties in Southeast Asia , and in parts of Africa. Canadian English

13680-408: The Peloponnesians may have been party to Themistocles's stratagem, so serenely did they accept that they would now have to fight at Salamis. The Allied navy was thus able to prepare properly for battle the forthcoming day, whilst the Persians spent the night fruitlessly at sea, searching for the alleged Greek evacuation. The next morning, the Persians rowed into the straits to attack the Greek fleet; it

13851-428: The Persian fleet assembled at Doriskos in the spring of 480 BC. The number of 1,207 (for the outset only) is also given by Ephorus , while his teacher Isocrates claims there were 1,300 at Doriskos and 1,200 at Salamis. Ctesias gives another number, 1,000 ships, while Plato , speaking in general terms refers to 1,000 ships and more. Herodotus gives a precise list of the ships of the various nations that composed

14022-453: The Persian fleet in the nearby straits of Artemisium . In the resulting Battle of Thermopylae , the rearguard of the Greek force was annihilated, while in the Battle of Artemisium the Greeks suffered heavy losses and retreated after the loss at Thermopylae. This allowed the Persians to conquer Phocis , Boeotia , Attica and Euboea . The allies prepared to defend the Isthmus of Corinth while

14193-673: The Persian fleet initially numbered 1,207 triremes. However, by his reckoning they lost approximately a third of these ships in a storm off the coast of Magnesia , 200 more in a storm off the coast of Euboea, and at least 50 ships to Allied action at the Battle of Artemisium. Herodotus claims that these losses were replaced in full, but only mentions 120 ships from the Greeks of Thrace and nearby islands as reinforcements. Aeschylus , who fought at Salamis, also claims that he faced 1,207 warships there, of which 207 were "fast ships". Diodorus and Lysias independently claim there were 1,200 ships in

14364-451: The Persians pivoted their fleet off the tip of Cape Vavari, so that from an initial east–west alignment (blocking the exit), they came round to a north–south alignment (see diagram). The Persian fleet seems to have been formed into three ranks of ships (according to Aeschylus); with the powerful Phoenician fleet on the right flank next to Mount Aigaleo, the Ionian contingent on the left flank and

14535-451: The Persians to the Greeks, one before Artemisium and one before Salamis, so the total complement at Salamis would have been 373 (or 380). According to the Athenian playwright Aeschylus , who actually fought at Salamis, the Greek fleet numbered 310 triremes (the difference being the number of Athenian ships). Ctesias claims that the Athenian fleet numbered only 110 triremes, which ties in with Aeschylus's numbers. According to Hyperides ,

14706-446: The Persians would not have attempted this unless they had been confident of the collapse of the Allied navy, and thus Themistocles's subterfuge appears to have played a key role in tipping the balance in the favor of the Greeks. Salamis was, for the Persians, an unnecessary battle and a strategic mistake. The battle of Salamis is not well described by ancient sources, and it is unlikely that anyone (other than perhaps Xerxes) involved in

14877-506: The Queen of Halicarnassus, and commander of the Carian contingent, found herself pursued by the ship of Ameinias of Pallene. In her desire to escape, she attacked and rammed another Persian vessel, thereby convincing the Athenian captain that the ship was an ally; Ameinias accordingly abandoned the chase. However, Xerxes, looking on, thought that she had successfully attacked an Allied ship, and seeing

15048-701: The South East, there are significantly different accents; the Cockney accent spoken by some East Londoners is strikingly different from Received Pronunciation (RP). Cockney rhyming slang can be (and was initially intended to be) difficult for outsiders to understand, although the extent of its use is often somewhat exaggerated. Londoners speak with a mixture of accents, depending on ethnicity, neighbourhood, class, age, upbringing, and sundry other factors. Estuary English has been gaining prominence in recent decades: it has some features of RP and some of Cockney. Immigrants to

15219-438: The Straits. The remaining Persian ships limped back to the harbour of Phalerum and the shelter of the Persian army. The Athenian general Aristides then took a detachment of men across to Psyttaleia to slaughter the garrison that Xerxes had left there. The exact Persian casualties are not mentioned by Herodotus. However, he writes that the next year, the Persian fleet numbered 300 triremes. The number of losses then depends on

15390-640: The Trojan War. One, collectively called the Achilleis , comprised Myrmidons , Nereids and Phrygians (alternately, The Ransoming of Hector ). Another trilogy apparently recounted the entrance of the Trojan ally Memnon into the war, and his death at the hands of Achilles ( Memnon and The Weighing of Souls being two components of the trilogy). The Award of the Arms , The Phrygian Women , and The Salaminian Women suggest

15561-537: The UK in recent decades have brought many more languages to the country and particularly to London. Surveys started in 1979 by the Inner London Education Authority discovered over 125 languages being spoken domestically by the families of the inner city's schoolchildren. Notably Multicultural London English , a sociolect that emerged in the late 20th century spoken mainly by young, working-class people in multicultural parts of London . Since

15732-564: The United Kingdom , as well as within the countries themselves. The major divisions are normally classified as English English (or English as spoken in England (which is itself broadly grouped into Southern English , West Country , East and West Midlands English and Northern English ), Northern Irish English (in Northern Ireland), Welsh English (not to be confused with the Welsh language ), and Scottish English (not to be confused with

15903-426: The United Kingdom, and this could be described by the term British English . The forms of spoken English, however, vary considerably more than in most other areas of the world where English is spoken and so a uniform concept of British English is more difficult to apply to the spoken language. Globally, countries that are former British colonies or members of the Commonwealth tend to follow British English, as

16074-458: The West Scottish accent. Phonological features characteristic of British English revolve around the pronunciation of the letter R, as well as the dental plosive T and some diphthongs specific to this dialect. Once regarded as a Cockney feature, in a number of forms of spoken British English, /t/ has become commonly realised as a glottal stop [ʔ] when it is in the intervocalic position, in

16245-495: The abyss because Prometheus will not tell him of a potential marriage which could prove Zeus' downfall. Prometheus Bound seems to have been the first play in a trilogy, the Prometheia . In the second play, Prometheus Unbound , Heracles frees Prometheus from his chains and kills the eagle that had been sent daily to eat Prometheus' perpetually regenerating liver, then believed the source of feeling. We learn that Zeus has released

16416-526: The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Kennedy was notified of King's murder before a campaign stop in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was warned not to attend the event due to fears of rioting from the mostly African-American crowd. Kennedy insisted on attending and delivered an impromptu speech that delivered news of King's death. Acknowledging the audience's emotions, Kennedy referred to his own grief at

16587-573: The audience. According to a later account of Aeschylus' life, the chorus of Furies in the first performance of the Eumenides were so frightening when they entered that children fainted and patriarchs urinated and pregnant women went into labour. Aeschylus wrote his plays in verse. No violence is performed onstage. The plays have a remoteness from daily life in Athens, relating stories about the gods, or being set, like The Persians , far away. Aeschylus' work has

16758-481: The award of the grant in 2007, Leeds University stated: that they were "very pleased"—and indeed, "well chuffed"—at receiving their generous grant. He could, of course, have been "bostin" if he had come from the Black Country , or if he was a Scouser he would have been well "made up" over so many spondoolicks, because as a Geordie might say, £460,000 is a "canny load of chink". Most people in Britain speak with

16929-459: The battle had a clear idea what was happening across the width of the straits. What follows is more of a discussion than a definitive account. In the Allied fleet, the Athenians were on the left, and on the right were probably the Spartans (although Diodorus says it was the Megareans and Aeginetians); the other contingents were in the center. The Allied fleet probably formed into two ranks, since

17100-432: The battle, assuming that neither side simply attacked without forethought. Clearly though, at some point just before the battle, new information began to reach Xerxes of rifts in the allied command; the Peloponnesians wished to evacuate from Salamis while they still could. This alleged rift amongst the Allies may have simply been a ruse, in order to lure the Persians to battle. Alternatively, this change in attitude amongst

17271-427: The burial of Polynices, and Antigone declares her intention to defy this edict. The play was the third in a connected Oedipus trilogy. The first two plays were Laius and Oedipus . The concluding satyr play was The Sphinx . Aeschylus continued his emphasis on the polis with The Suppliants ( Hiketides ) in 463 BC. The play gives tribute to the democratic undercurrents which were running through Athens and preceding

17442-417: The campaigning season (and not waited 4 days at Thermopylae for the Greeks to disperse). Time was now of the essence for the Persians – the huge invasion force could not be reasonably supported indefinitely, nor probably did Xerxes wish to be at the fringe of his empire for so long. Thermopylae had shown that a frontal assault against a well defended Greek position was useless; with the Allies now dug in across

17613-413: The coast of the Isthmus in order to achieve such a blockade. However, Themistocles argued in favour of an offensive strategy, aimed at decisively destroying the Persians' naval superiority. He drew on the lessons of Artemisium, pointing out that "battle in close conditions works to our advantage" . He eventually won through, and the Allied navy remained off the coast of Salamis. The timeline for Salamis

17784-567: The collective dialects of English throughout the British Isles taken as a single umbrella variety, for instance additionally incorporating Scottish English , Welsh English , and Northern Irish English . Tom McArthur in the Oxford Guide to World English acknowledges that British English shares "all the ambiguities and tensions [with] the word 'British' and as a result can be used and interpreted in two ways, more broadly or more narrowly, within

17955-535: The conquest of Greece. The following year the remainder of the Persian army was defeated at the Battle of Plataea and the Persian navy at the Battle of Mycale . The Persians made no further attempts to conquer the Greek mainland. The battles of Salamis and Plataea thus mark a turning point in the course of the Greco-Persian Wars as a whole; from then onward, the Greek poleis would take the offensive. The Greek city-states of Athens and Eretria had supported

18126-613: The country. The BBC Voices project also collected hundreds of news articles about how the British speak English from swearing through to items on language schools. This information will also be collated and analysed by Johnson's team both for content and for where it was reported. "Perhaps the most remarkable finding in the Voices study is that the English language is as diverse as ever, despite our increased mobility and constant exposure to other accents and dialects through TV and radio". When discussing

18297-417: The day after the wedding. It is revealed that 49 of the 50 Danaids killed their husbands. Hypermnestra did not kill her husband, Lynceus, and helped him escape. Danaus is angered by his daughter's disobedience and orders her imprisonment and possibly execution. In the trilogy's climax and dénouement, Lynceus reveals himself to Danaus and kills him, thus fulfilling the oracle. He and Hypermnestra will establish

18468-408: The difficulties of maneuvering in this confined space by night, and others accepting Herodotus's version. There are thus two possibilities; that during the night the Persians simply blocked the exit to the Straits, and then entered the straits in daylight; or that they entered the straits and positioned themselves for battle during the night. Regardless of when they attempted it, it seems likely that

18639-457: The empire). Darius also saw the opportunity to expand his empire into the fractious world of Ancient Greece. A preliminary expedition under Mardonius, in 492 BC, to secure the land approaches to Greece ended with the conquest of Thrace and forced Macedon to become a client kingdom of Persia. In 491 BC, Darius sent emissaries to all the Greek city-states, asking for a gift of ' earth and water ' in token of their submission to him. Having had

18810-422: The establishment of a democratic government in 461. The Danaids (50 daughters of Danaus , founder of Argos ) flee a forced marriage to their cousins in Egypt. They turn to King Pelasgus of Argos for protection, but Pelasgus refuses until the people of Argos weigh in on the decision (a distinctly democratic move on the part of the king). The people decide that the Danaids deserve protection and are allowed within

18981-577: The final evacuation of Athens. En route Themistocles left inscriptions addressed to the Ionian Greek crews of the Persian fleet on all springs of water that they might stop at, asking them to defect to the Allied cause. Following Thermopylae, the Persian army proceeded to burn and sack the Boeotian cities that had not surrendered, Plataea and Thespiae , before marching on the now evacuated city of Athens. The Allies (mostly Peloponnesian) prepared to defend

19152-458: The first line of Persian ships was pushed back by the Greeks, they became fouled in the advancing second and third lines of their own ships. On the Greek left, the Persian admiral Ariabignes (a brother of Xerxes) was killed early in the battle; left disorganised and leaderless, the Phoenician squadrons appear to have been pushed back against the coast, many vessels running aground. In the centre,

19323-468: The first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides, who is thought to have written roughly 90 plays. One hallmark of Aeschylean dramaturgy appears to have been his tendency to write connected trilogies in which each play serves as

19494-454: The fleet was withdrawn to nearby Salamis Island. Although heavily outnumbered, the Greeks were persuaded by Athenian general Themistocles to bring the Persian fleet to battle again, in the hope that a victory would prevent naval operations against the Peloponnese . Persian king Xerxes was also eager for a decisive battle. As a result of subterfuge on the part of Themistocles (which included

19665-542: The forthcoming conflict with Persia. The most common naval tactics in the Mediterranean area at the time were ramming (triremes being equipped with a ram at the bows), or boarding by ship-borne marines (which essentially turned a sea battle into a land one). The Persians and Asiatic Greeks had by this time begun to use a manoeuvre known as diekplous . It is not entirely clear what this was, but it probably involved rowing into gaps between enemy ships and then ramming them in

19836-747: The gods would restore the winds and allow the Greek fleet to sail to Troy. Clytemnestra was also unhappy that Agamemnon kept the Trojan prophetess Cassandra as his concubine. Cassandra foretells the murder of Agamemnon and of herself to the assembled townsfolk, who are horrified. She then enters the palace knowing that she cannot avoid her fate. The ending of the play includes a prediction of the return of Orestes , son of Agamemnon, who will seek to avenge his father. The Libation Bearers opens with Orestes' arrival at Agamemnon's tomb, from exile in Phocis . Electra meets Orestes there. They plan revenge against Clytemnestra and her lover, Aegisthus . Clytemnestra's account of

20007-453: The idea of two different morphemes, one that causes the double negation, and one that is used for the point or the verb. Standard English in the United Kingdom, as in other English-speaking nations, is widely enforced in schools and by social norms for formal contexts but not by any singular authority; for instance, there is no institution equivalent to the Académie française with French or

20178-464: The importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century, Aeschylus and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis. The Persian Wars played a large role in Aeschylus' life and career. In 490 BC, he and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the invading army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon . The Athenians emerged triumphant, and

20349-422: The influence was so great as to merit a direct character by character comparison between Wagner's Ring and Aeschylus's Oresteia . But a critic of that book, while not denying that Wagner read and respected Aeschylus, has described the arguments as unreasonable and forced. J.T. Sheppard argues in the second half of his Aeschylus and Sophocles: Their Work and Influence that Aeschylus and Sophocles have played

20520-406: The invasion of 480 BC was to overwhelm the Greeks with a massive invasion force, and complete the conquest of Greece in a single campaigning season. In contrast, the Greeks sought to make the best use of their numbers by defending restricted locations and to keep the Persians in the field for as long as possible. Xerxes had obviously not anticipated such resistance, or he would have arrived earlier in

20691-511: The last southern Midlands accent to use the broad "a" in words like bath or grass (i.e. barth or grarss ). Conversely crass or plastic use a slender "a". A few miles northwest in Leicestershire the slender "a" becomes more widespread generally. In the town of Corby , five miles (8 km) north, one can find Corbyite which, unlike the Kettering accent, is largely influenced by

20862-459: The last time, visiting the city of Gela , where he died in 456 or 455 BC. Valerius Maximus wrote that he was killed outside the city by a tortoise dropped by an eagle which had mistaken his head for a rock suitable for shattering the shell, and killed him. Pliny , in his Naturalis Historiæ , adds that Aeschylus had been staying outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would be killed by a falling object, but this story may be legendary and due to

21033-508: The later Norman occupation led to the grafting onto that Germanic core of a more elaborate layer of words from the Romance branch of the European languages. This Norman influence entered English largely through the courts and government. Thus, English developed into a "borrowing" language of great flexibility and with a huge vocabulary . Dialects and accents vary amongst the four countries of

21204-539: The life of Perseus ( The Net-draggers , Polydektês , Phorkides ), the birth and exploits of Dionysus ( Semele , Bacchae , Pentheus ), and the aftermath of the war portrayed in Seven Against Thebes ( Eleusinians , Argives (or Argive Women ), Sons of the Seven ). The Persians ( Persai ) is the earliest of Aeschylus' extant plays. It was performed in 472 BC. It was based on Aeschylus' own experiences, specifically

21375-407: The likelihood of them employing the diekplous . It is therefore probable that the Allies had extra marines on board if their ships were less manoeuvrable, since boarding would then be the main tactic available to them (at the cost of making the ships even heavier). Indeed, Herodotus refers to the Greeks capturing ships at Artemisium, rather than sinking them. It has been suggested that the weight of

21546-452: The mass internal migration to Northamptonshire in the 1940s and given its position between several major accent regions, it has become a source of various accent developments. In Northampton the older accent has been influenced by overspill Londoners. There is an accent known locally as the Kettering accent, which is a transitional accent between the East Midlands and East Anglian . It is

21717-497: The military service of him and his brothers during the Persian Wars. According to the 2nd-century AD author Aelian, Aeschylus' younger brother Ameinias helped to acquit Aeschylus by showing the jury the stump of the hand he had lost at Salamis, where he was voted bravest warrior. The truth is that the award for bravery at Salamis went not to Aeschylus' brother but to Ameinias of Pallene. Aeschylus travelled to Sicily once or twice in

21888-429: The mortal Peleus. The product of that union is Achilles, Greek hero of the Trojan War. After reconciling with Prometheus, Zeus probably inaugurates a festival in his honor at Athens. Of Aeschylus' other plays, only titles and assorted fragments are known. There are enough fragments (along with comments made by later authors and scholiasts) to produce rough synopses for some plays. This play was based on books 9 and 16 of

22059-466: The murder of Martin Luther King and, quoting a passage from the play Agamemnon (in translation), said: "My favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote: 'Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.' What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States

22230-474: The narrow Vale of Tempe , on the borders of Thessaly , and thereby block Xerxes's advance. However, once there, they were warned by Alexander I of Macedon that the vale could be bypassed through the pass by the modern village of Sarantaporo , and that the army of Xerxes was overwhelming, so the Greeks retreated. Shortly afterward, they received the news that Xerxes had crossed the Hellespont. A second strategy

22401-408: The narrow Isthmus, there was little chance of conquering the rest of Greece by land. However, as equally demonstrated by Thermopylae, if the Greeks could be outflanked, their smaller numbers of troops could be destroyed. Such an outflanking of the Isthmus required the use of the Persian navy, and thus the destruction of the Allied navy. Therefore, if Xerxes could destroy the Allied navy, he would be in

22572-425: The nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke, he began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was 26 years old. He won his first victory at the Dionysia in 484 BC. In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, and Cleisthenes came to power. Cleisthenes' reforms included a system of registration that emphasized

22743-567: The number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus . Only seven of Aeschylus's estimated 70 to 90 plays have survived in complete form. There is a long-standing debate regarding the authorship of one of them , Prometheus Bound , with some scholars arguing that it may be the work of his son Euphorion . Fragments from other plays have survived in quotations, and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyri . These fragments often give further insights into Aeschylus' work. He

22914-482: The number of ships the Persian had to begin with; something in the range of 200–300 seems likely, based on the above estimates for the size of the Persian fleet. According to Herodotus, the Persians suffered many more casualties than the Greeks because most Persians did not know how to swim. A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis And ships, by thousands, lay below, And men in nations;—all were his! He counted them at break of day— And when

23085-562: The other Titans which he imprisoned at the conclusion of the Titanomachy , perhaps foreshadowing his eventual reconciliation with Prometheus. In the trilogy's conclusion, Prometheus the Fire-Bringer , it seems that the Titan finally warns Zeus not to sleep with the sea nymph Thetis , for she is fated to beget a son greater than the father. Not wishing to be overthrown, Zeus marries Thetis off to

23256-493: The other contingents in the centre. Diodorus says that the Egyptian fleet was sent to circumnavigate Salamis, and block the northern exit from the Straits. If Xerxes wanted to trap the Allies completely, this maneuver would have made sense (especially if he was not expecting the Allies to fight). However, Herodotus does not mention this (and possibly alludes to the Egyptian presence in the main battle), leading some modern historians to dismiss it; though again, others accept it as

23427-451: The play. In the Republic , Plato quotes the line "God plants a fault in mortals when he wills to destroy a house utterly." These are the remaining 71 plays ascribed to Aeschylus which are known: The theatre was just beginning to evolve when Aeschylus started writing for it. Earlier playwrights such as Thespis had already expanded the cast to include an actor who was able to interact with

23598-580: The poor performance of his other captains commented that "My men have become women, and my women men". The friendly ship she sank was a Calyndian ship and the king of the Calyndians, Damasithymos ( Greek : Δαμασίθυμος ) was on it. None of the crew of the Calyndian ship survived. The Persian fleet began to retreat towards Phalerum, but according to Herodotus, the Aeginetans ambushed them as they tried to leave

23769-413: The preparations were complete, and the army which Xerxes had mustered at Sardis marched towards Europe, crossing the Hellespont on two pontoon bridges . The Athenians had also been preparing for war with the Persians since the mid-480s BC, and in 482 BC the decision was taken, under the guidance of the Athenian politician Themistocles , to build a massive fleet of triremes that would be necessary for

23940-590: The production that included the Persians , with Pericles serving as choregos . Aeschylus married and had two sons, Euphorion and Euaeon, both of whom became tragic poets. Euphorion won first prize in 431 BC in competition against both Sophocles and Euripides . A nephew of Aeschylus, Philocles (his sister's son), was also a tragic poet, and won first prize in the competition against Sophocles' Oedipus Rex . Aeschylus had at least two brothers, Cynegeirus and Ameinias . In 458 BC, Aeschylus returned to Sicily for

24111-524: The run-up to Salamis. Artemisia suggested that fighting at sea was an unnecessary risk, recommending instead: If you do not hurry to fight at sea, but keep your ships here and stay near land, or even advance into the Peloponnese, then, my lord, you will easily accomplish what you had in mind on coming here. The Hellenes are not able to hold out against you for a long time, but you will scatter them, and they will each flee to their own cities. The Persian fleet

24282-457: The side. This manoeuvre would have required skilled crews, and therefore the Persians would have been more likely to employ it; the Allies however, developed tactics specifically to counter this. There has been much debate as to the nature of the Allied fleet compared to the Persian fleet. Much of this centres on the suggestion, from Herodotus, that the Allied ships were heavier, and by implication less manoeuvrable. The source of this heaviness

24453-489: The southern exit. Then, at dusk, he ordered them to withdraw, possibly in order to tempt the Allies into a hasty evacuation. That evening Themistocles attempted what appears to have been a spectacularly successful use of disinformation. He sent a servant, Sicinnus , to Xerxes, with a message proclaiming that Themistocles was "on the king's side and prefers that your affairs prevail, not the Hellenes" . Themistocles claimed that

24624-488: The straits of Artemisium. This dual strategy was adopted by the congress. However, the Peloponnesian cities made fall-back plans to defend the Isthmus of Corinth should it come to it, whilst the women and children of Athens had been evacuated en masse to the Peloponnesian city of Troezen . Famously, the much smaller Greek army held the pass of Thermopylae against the Persians for three days before being outflanked by

24795-428: The straits would have been too narrow for a single line of ships. Herodotus has the Allied fleet in a line running north–south, probably with the northern flank off the coast of modern-day Saint George's Islet ( Ayios Georgis ), and the southern flank off the coast of Cape Vavari (part of Salamis). Diodorus suggests the Allied fleet was aligned east–west, spanning the straits between Salamis and Mount Aigaleo; however, it

24966-419: The submission of the other Cycladic Islands . The task force then moved on Eretria, which it besieged and destroyed. Finally, it moved to attack Athens, landing at the bay of Marathon , where it was met by a heavily outnumbered Athenian army. At the ensuing Battle of Marathon , the Athenians won a remarkable victory, which resulted in the withdrawal of the Persian army to Asia. Darius therefore began raising

25137-580: The sun set where were they? Xerxes, sitting on Mount Aigaleo on his throne, witnessed the carnage. Some ship-wrecked Phoenician captains tried to blame the Ionians for cowardice before the end of the battle. Xerxes, in a foul mood, and having just witnessed an Ionian ship capture an Aeginetan ship, had the Phoenicians beheaded for slandering "more noble men". According to Diodorus, Xerxes "put to death those Phoenicians who were chiefly responsible for beginning

25308-587: The theft of work tools worth £500 from a van at the Sprucefield park and ride car park in Lisburn. A football team can be treated likewise: Arsenal have lost just one of 20 home Premier League matches against Manchester City. This tendency can be observed in texts produced already in the 19th century. For example, Jane Austen , a British author, writes in Chapter 4 of Pride and Prejudice , published in 1813: All

25479-401: The throne of the city. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down. Polynices therefore undertakes war. The pair kill each other in single combat, and the original ending of the play consisted of lamentations for the dead brothers. But a new ending was added to the play some fifty years later: Antigone and Ismene mourn their dead brothers, a messenger enters announcing an edict prohibiting

25650-404: The tomb of Darius, her husband, where his ghost appears, to explain the cause of the defeat. It is, he says, the result of Xerxes' hubris in building a bridge across the Hellespont , an action which angered the gods. Xerxes appears at the end of the play, not realizing the cause of his defeat, and the play closes to lamentations by Xerxes and the chorus. Seven against Thebes ( Hepta epi Thebas )

25821-403: The traditional accent of Newcastle upon Tyne , 'out' will sound as 'oot', and in parts of Scotland and North-West England, 'my' will be pronounced as 'me'. Long vowels /iː/ and /uː/ are diphthongised to [ɪi] and [ʊu] respectively (or, more technically, [ʏʉ], with a raised tongue), so that ee and oo in feed and food are pronounced with a movement. The diphthong [oʊ] is also pronounced with

25992-415: The trilogy known as The Oresteia (the three tragedies Agamemnon , The Libation Bearers and The Eumenides ), and Prometheus Bound (whose authorship is disputed). With the exception of this last play – the success of which is uncertain – all of Aeschylus's extant tragedies are known to have won first prize at the City Dionysia. The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus claims that he won

26163-533: The unsuccessful Ionian Revolt against the Persian Empire of Darius I in 499-494 BC, led by the satrap of Miletus, Aristagoras. The Persian Empire was still relatively young, and prone to revolts amongst its subject peoples. Moreover, Darius was a usurper, and had spent considerable time extinguishing revolts against his rule. The Ionian revolt threatened the integrity of his empire, and Darius thus vowed to punish those involved (especially those not already part of

26334-401: The victory was celebrated across the city-states of Greece. Cynegeirus was killed while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero. In 480 BC, Aeschylus was called into military service again, together with his younger brother Ameinias , against Xerxes I 's invading forces at the Battle of Salamis . Aeschylus also fought at

26505-497: The violent story of the family of Agamemnon , king of Argos . Aeschylus begins in Greece, describing the return of King Agamemnon from his victory in the Trojan War , from the perspective of the townspeople (the Chorus) and his wife, Clytemnestra . Dark foreshadowings build to the death of the king at the hands of his wife, who was angry that their daughter Iphigenia was killed so that

26676-409: The walls of Argos despite Egyptian protests. A Danaid trilogy had long been assumed because of The Suppliants' cliffhanger ending. This was confirmed by the 1952 publication of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2256 fr. 3. The constituent plays are generally agreed to be The Suppliants and The Egyptians and The Danaids . A plausible reconstruction of the trilogy's last two-thirds runs thus: In The Egyptians ,

26847-440: The war providing triremes...The total number of ships...was three hundred and seventy-eight"), and he also says that the Aeginetans "had other manned ships, but they guarded their own land with these and fought at Salamis with the thirty most seaworthy". Thus it has been supposed that the difference between the numbers is accounted for by a garrison of 12 ships left at Aegina . According to Herodotus, two more ships defected from

27018-560: The world are good and agreeable in your eyes. However, in Chapter 16, the grammatical number is used. The world is blinded by his fortune and consequence. Some dialects of British English use negative concords, also known as double negatives . Rather than changing a word or using a positive, words like nobody, not, nothing, and never would be used in the same sentence. While this does not occur in Standard English, it does occur in non-standard dialects. The double negation follows

27189-520: Was notably limited . However, the degree of influence remains debated, and it has recently been argued that its grammatical influence accounts for the substantial innovations noted between English and the other West Germanic languages. Initially, Old English was a diverse group of dialects, reflecting the varied origins of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England. One of these dialects, Late West Saxon , eventually came to dominate. The original Old English

27360-472: Was accused of asebeia (impiety) for revealing some of the cult's secrets on stage. Other sources claim that an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot but he fled the scene. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the audience tried to stone Aeschylus. Aeschylus took refuge at the altar in the orchestra of the Theater of Dionysus. He pleaded ignorance at his trial. He was acquitted, with the jury sympathetic to

27531-518: Was later inscribed on a memorial at the gravesite of Robert Kennedy following his own assassination. British English British English (abbreviations: BrE , en-GB , and BE ) is the set of varieties of the English language native to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland . More narrowly, it can refer specifically to the English language in England , or, more broadly, to

27702-421: Was likely the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy . His Oresteia is the only extant ancient example. At least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians' second invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). This work, The Persians , is one of very few classical Greek tragedies concerned with contemporary events, and the only one extant. The significance of the war with Persia was so great to Aeschylus and

27873-422: Was never a truly mixed language in the strictest sense of the word; mixed languages arise from the cohabitation of speakers of different languages, who develop a hybrid tongue for basic communication). The more idiomatic, concrete and descriptive English is, the more it is from Anglo-Saxon origins. The more intellectual and abstract English is, the more it contains Latin and French influences, e.g. swine (like

28044-453: Was performed in 467 BC. It has the contrasting theme of the interference of the gods in human affairs. Another theme, with which Aeschylus' would continually involve himself, makes its first known appearance in this play, namely that the polis was a key development of human civilization. The play tells the story of Eteocles and Polynices , the sons of the shamed king of Thebes , Oedipus . Eteocles and Polynices agree to share and alternate

28215-416: Was possible to sink an enemy ship, or at least disable it by shearing off the banks of oars on one side. If the initial ramming was not successful, marines boarded the enemy ship and something similar to a land battle ensued. Both sides had marines on their ships for this eventuality; the Greeks with fully armed hoplites ; the Persians probably with more lightly armed infantry. Across the battlefield, as

28386-400: Was probably due to the superior seamanship of the crews; most of the Athenian ships (and therefore the majority of the fleet) were newly built as according to Themistocles' request to the Athenians to build a fleet of 200 triremes in 483 BC, and had inexperienced crews. Despite the inexperienced crew on the part of the Athenians, these newly constructed triremes would ultimately prove crucial in

28557-448: Was still large enough to both bottle up the Allied navy in the straits of Salamis, and send ships to land troops in the Peloponnese. However, in the final reckoning, both sides were prepared to stake everything on a naval battle, in the hope of decisively altering the course of the war. The Persians were at a tactical advantage, outnumbering the Allies, and also having "better sailing" ships. The "better sailing" that Herodotus mentions

28728-472: Was the ship of the Athenian Ameinias of Pallene ; the Aeginetans would claim it as one of their ships. The whole Greek line then followed suit and made straight for the disordered Persian battle line. The details of the rest of the battle are generally sketchy, and no one involved would have had a view of the entire battlefield. Triremes were generally armed with a large ram at the front, with which it

28899-521: Was then influenced by two waves of invasion: the first was by speakers of the Scandinavian branch of the Germanic family, who settled in parts of Britain in the eighth and ninth centuries; the second was the Normans in the 11th century, who spoke Old Norman and ultimately developed an English variety of this called Anglo-Norman . These two invasions caused English to become "mixed" to some degree (though it

29070-455: Was therefore adopted by the allies. The route to southern Greece (Boeotia, Attica and the Peloponnese) would require the army of Xerxes to travel through the very narrow pass of Thermopylae . This could easily be blocked by the Greek hoplites, despite the overwhelming numbers of Persians. Furthermore, to prevent the Persians bypassing Thermopylae by sea, the Athenian and allied navies could block

29241-432: Was to gain better position, and also in order to gain time until the early morning wind. Herodotus recounts the legend that as the fleet had backed away, they had seen an apparition of a woman, asking them "Madmen, how far will ye yet back your ships?" However, he more plausibly suggests that whilst the Allies were backing water, a single ship shot forward to ram the nearest Persian vessel. The Athenians would claim that this

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