Author: AESCHYLUS
Biography:
AESCHYLUS (c. 525/4-456/5 BCE: OCD)
Of the three great Greek tragedians—Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides (qq.v.)—Aeschylus was the earliest and, according to OCD, “the most innovative and imaginative of Greek dramatists.” He was probably born at Eleusis near Athens in 525/4 BCE and served in the Athenian army, fighting in major battles against the Persians including at Marathon. His first tragedy was performed at Athens in 499 and from 484 he invariably won the dramatic competitions at the annual City Dionysia. In 458 Aeschylus moved to Sicily and he died at Gela on the south coast in 456/5. Two of his sons also became tragedians. Aeschylus is said to have written as many as 90 plays and those that survive—Persians, Seven Against Thebes, Suppliants, Prometheus Bound (possibly not by Aeschylus), and three plays in the Oresteia tetralogy—are admired, adapted, and performed to this day. Of the translators of his works included here, Robert Potter, Hugh Stuart Boyd, Thomas Medwin, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and James Kennedy have headnotes of their own. Thomas Morell (1703-84) was born at Eton, Buckinghamshire, and educated at Eton School and King’s College Cambridge (BA 1726, MA 1730, DD 1743). He also studied at Oxford (MA 1733). He was ordained in 1725 and became rector at Buckland, Hertfordshire. Morell published sermons, editions (of Chaucer and Spenser), translations, and verse; he also composed librettos for music by Handel. DNB and ODNB list his translation of Aeschylus as first published in 1767. However, that is a translation from Greek into Latin and the translation into English is correctly dated to 1773. He died at Chiswick, London, on 19 Feb. 1784. John Symmons (1780-1842) was the elder son of Charles Symmons (q.v.). He was educated at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford (BA 1803, MA 1806), before being called to the bar in 1807 and serving on the Western circuit. John Scandrett Harford (1785-1866) was a biographer who, in addition to his translation of Aeschylus listed here, contributed “Essay on the Grecian Drama” to the 1833 edition of Potter’s translation. George Croker Fox (1785-1850) of Grove Hill, near Falmouth, Cornwall, was a country gentleman who published the translation listed here and The Death of Demosthenes, and Other Original Poems (1839). (OCD 25 Feb. 2025; ODNB 25 Feb. 2025; Burke Gentry; Westminster School Archives; ancestry.co.uk 25 Feb. 2025) SR