Ancient History PDF EPUB

Agamemnon

by Aeschylus

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First published: -458
Pages: 87

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About this book

Agamemnon is the first play in the Oresteia, the only complete tragic trilogy to survive from ancient Greece, written by Aeschylus and first performed in 458 BC. King Agamemnon returns in triumph from the ten-year war at Troy, only to be killed in his own house by his wife Clytemnestra, who has waited all those years to avenge the daughter he sacrificed to launch the fleet. The play moves with terrible slowness toward its act of blood, watched by a chorus of old men who sense the doom gathering over the royal house. It sets in motion the trilogy's great question of how the endless chain of revenge can ever be broken.

About the author

Aeschylus

Aeschylus fought at Marathon and probably at Salamis, and his epitaph records the battle rather than the plays, which is said to have been his own instruction. He added a second actor to tragedy, which is the point at which drama becomes dialogue instead of a chorus with a soloist. Seven of perhaps ninety plays survive.