Aeschylus (c. 525–456 BCE) was the earliest of the three great Athenian tragedians whose plays survive. He fought at Marathon and perhaps Salamis, and his drama repeatedly thinks through violence, divine justice and civic order after war. Of his many plays only seven survive complete, with the Oresteia the only complete Greek tragic trilogy preserved from antiquity.
The Oresteia follows the House of Atreus from inherited blood guilt to the foundation of civic justice. Agamemnon opens at Argos, where a watchman sees the beacon announcing Troy’s fall.
