of the Athenian deputies (pylagorae) in the Amphictyonic
Council, he made a speech which brought about the Sacred
War. By way of revenge, Aeschines endeavoured to fix the
blame for these disasters upon Demosthenes. In 336, when
Ctesiphon proposed that his friend Demosthenes should be
rewarded with a golden crown for his distinguished services
to the state, he was accused by Aeschines of having violated
the law in bringing forward the motion. The matter remained
in abeyance till 330, when the two rivals delivered their
speeches Against Ctesiphon and on the crown. The result
was a complete victory for Demosthenes. Aeschines went
into voluntary exile at Rhodes, where he opened a school of
rhetoric. He afterwards removed to Samos, where he died in
the seventy-fifth year of his age. His three speeches, called
by the ancients ``the Three Graces,'' rank next to those of
Demosthenes. Photius knew of nine letters by him which
he called the Nine Muses; the twelve published under his
name (Hercher, Epistolographi Graeci) are not genuine.
ANCIENT AUTHORITIES.---Demosthenes, De Corona and De
Falsa Legatione; Aeschines, De Falsa Legatione and
In Ctesiphontem; Lives by Plutarch, Philostratus and
Libanius; the Exegesis of Apollonius. EDITIONS.--Benseler
(1855-1860) (trans. and notes), Weidner (1872), Blass (1896);
Against Ctesiphon, Weidner (1872, 1878), G.A.and W.H.
Simcox (1866), Drake (1872), Richardson(1889), Gwatkin and
Shuckburgh (1890). ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS.--Leland (1771).
Biddle (1881), and others. See also Stechow, Aeschinis
Oratoris vita (1841); Marchand, Charakteristik des Redners
Aschines (1876): Castets, Eschine, l'Orateur (1875);
for the political problems see histories of Greece, esp. A.
Holm, vol. iii. (Eng. trans., 1896); A. Schofer, Demosth.
und seine Zeit (Leipzig, 1856-1858); also DEMOSTHENES.
AESCHINES (5th century B.C.), an Athenian philosopher.
According to some accounts he was the son of a sausage-maker,
but others say that his father was Lysanias (Diog. Laert. ii.
60; Suidas, q.v..) He was an intimate friend of Socrates,
who is reported to have said that the sausage-maker's son
alone knew how to honour him. Diogenes Laertius preserves
a tradition that it was he, not Crito, who offered to help
Socrates to escape from prison. He was always a poor man, and
Socrates advised him ``to borrow from himself, by diminishing
his expenditure.'' He started a perfumery shop in Athens on
borrowed capital, became bankrupt and retired to the Syracusan
court, where he was well received by Aristippus. According to
Diog. Laert. (ii. 61), Plato, then at Syracuse, pointedly
ignored Aeschines, but this does not agree with Plutarch, De
adulatore et amico (c. 26). On the expulsion of the younger
Dionysius, he returned to Athens, and, finding it impossible
to profess philosophy publicly owing to the contempt of Plato
and Aristoue, was Compelled to teach privately. He wrote also
forensic speeches; Phrynichus, in Photius, ranks him amongst
the best orators, and mentions his orations as the standard
of the pure Attic style. Hermogenes also spoke highly of him
(Peri ideon.) He wrote several philosophical dialogues:
(1) Concerning virtue, whether it can be taught; (2)
Eryxias, or Erasistratust concerning riches, whether they
are good; (3) Axiochus: concerning death, whether it is
to be feared,--but those extant on the several subjects
are not genuine remains. J. le Clerc has given a Latin
translation of them, with notes and several dissertations,
entitled Silvae Philologicae, and they have been edited
by S. N. Fischer (Leipzig, 1786), and K. F. Hermann, De
Aeschin. Socrat. relig. (Gott. 1850). The genuine dialogues
appear to have been marked by the Socratic irony; an amusing
passage is quoted by Cicero in the De inventione (i. 31).
See Hirzel, Der Dialog. i. 129-140; T. Gomperz, Greek Thinkers,
vol. iii. p. 342 (Eng. trans. G. G. Berry, London, 1905).
AESCHYLUS (525-456 B.C.), Greek poet, the first of the
only three Attic Tragedians of whose work entire plays survive,
and in a very real sense (as we shall see) the founder of
the Greek drama, was born at Eleusis in the year 525 B.C.
Life.
His father, Euphorion, belonged to the ``Eupatridae'' or old
nobility of Athens, as we know on the authority of the short
Life of the poet given in the Medicean Manuscript (see
note on ``authorities'' at the end). According to the same
tradition he took part as a soldier in the great struggle
of Greece against Persia; and was present at the battles of
Marathon, Artemisium, Salamis and Plataea, in the years
490-479. At least one of his brothers, Cynaegirus, fought with
him at Marathon, and was killed in attempting a conspicuous act
of bravery; and the brothers' portraits found a place in the
national picture of the battle which the Athenians set up as a
memorial in the Stoa Poecile (or ``Pictured Porch'') at Athens.
The vigour and loftiness of tone which mark Aeschylus'
poetic work was not only due, we may be sure, to his native
genius and gifts, powerful as they were, but were partly
inspired by the personal share he took in the great actions
of a heroic national uprising. In the same way, the poet's
brooding thoughtfulness on deep questions---the power of the
gods, their dealings with man, the dark mysteries of fate,
the future life in Hades--though largely due to his turn of
mind and temperament, was doubtless connected with the place
where his childhood was passed. Eleusis was the centre of
the most famous worship of Demeter, with its processions, its
ceremonies, its mysteries, its impressive spectacles and
nocturnal rites; and these were intimately connected with
the Greek beliefs about the human soul, and the underworld.
His dramatic career began early, and was continued for more
than forty years. In 499, his 26th year, he first exhibited
at Athens; and his last work, acted during his lifetime at
Athens, was the trilogy of the Oresteia, exhibited in 458.
The total number of his plays is stated by Suidas to have
been ninety; and the seven extant plays, with the dramas named
or nameable which survive only in fragments, amount to over
eighty, so that Suidas' figure is probably based on reliable
tradition. It is well known that in the 5th century each
exhibitor at the tragic contests produced four plays; and
Aeschylus must therefore have competed (between 499 and 458)
more than twenty times, or once in two years. His first
victory is recorded in 484, fifteen years after his earliest
appearance on the stage; but in the remaining twenty-six
years of his dramatic activity at Athens he was successful
at least twelve times. This clearly shows that he was the
most commanding figure among the tragedians of 500-458; and
for more than half that time was usually the victor in the
contests. Perhaps the most striking evidence of his exceptional
position among his contemporaries is the well-known decree
passed shortly after his death that whosoever desired to
exhibit a play of Aeschylus should ``receive a chorus,''
i.e. be officially allowed to produce the drama at the
Dionysia. The existence of this decree, mentioned in the
Life, is strongly confirmed by two passages in Aristophanes:
first in the prologue of the Acharnians (which was acted
in 425, thirty-one years after the poet's death), where the
citizen, grumbling about his griefs and troubles, relates his
great disappointment, when he took his seat in the theatre
``expecting Aeschylus,'' to find that when the play came
on it was Theognis; and secondly in a scene of the Frogs
(acted 405 B.C.), where the throne of poetry is contested
in Hades between Aeschylus and Euripides, the former complains
(Fr. 860) that ``the battle is not fair, because my own
poetry has not died with me, while Euripides' has died, and
therefore he will have it with him to recite''-a clear
reference, as the scholiast points out, to the continued
production at Athens of Aeschylus' plays after his death.
Apart from fables, guesses and blunders, of which a word is
said below, the only other incidents recorded of the poet's
life that deserve mention are connected with his Sicilian
visits, and the charge preferred against him of revealing
the ``secrets of Demeter.'' This tale is briefly mentioned
by Aristotle (Eth. iii. 2), and a late commentator
(Eustratius, 12th century) quotes from one Heraclides
Pontius the version which may be briefly given as follows:--
The poet was acting a part in one of his own plays, where there
was a reference to Demeter. The audience suspected him of
revealing the inviolable secrets, and rose in fury; the poet
fled to the altar of Dionysus in the orchestra and so saved
his life for the moment; for even an angry Athenian crowd
respected the inviolable sanctuary. He was afterwards charged
with the crime before the Areopagus; and his plea ``that he
did not know that what he said was secret'' was accepted by
the court and secured his acquittal. The commentator adds
that the prowess of the poet (and his brother) at Marathon was
the real cause of the leniency of his judges. The story was
afterwards developed, and embellished by additions; but in the
above shape it dates back to the 4th century; and as the main
fact seems accepted by Aristotle, it is probably authentic.
As to his foreign travel, the suggestion has been made that
certain descriptions in the Persae, and the known facts
that he wrote a trilogy on the story of the Thracian king
Lycurgus, persecutor of Dionysus, seem to point to his
having a special knowledge of Thrace, which makes it likely
that he had visited it. This, however, remains at best a
conjecture. For his repeated visits to Sicily, on the other
hand, there is conclusive ancient evidence. Hiero the First,
tyrant of Syracuse, who reigned about twelve years (478-467),
and amongst other efforts after magnificence invited to his
court famous poets and men of letters, had founded a new town,
Aetna, on the site of Catana which he captured, expelling the
inhabitants. Among his guests were Aeschylus, Pindar,
Bacchylides and Simonides. About 476 Aeschylus was entertained
by him, and at his request wrote and exhibited a play called
The Women of Aetna in honour of the new town. He paid a
second visit about 472, the year in which he had produced the
Persae at Athens; and the play is said to have been repeated
at Syracuse at his patron's request. Hiero died in 467, the
year of the Seven against Thebes; but after 458, when the
Oresteia was exhibited at Athens, we find the poet again
in Sicily for the last time. In 456 he died, and was buried
at Gela; and on his tomb was placed an epitaph in two elegiac
couplets saying: ``Beneath this stone lies Aeschylus, son of
Euphorion, the Athenian, who perished in the wheat-bearing
land of Gela; of his noble prowess the grove of Marathon can
speak, or the long-haired Persian who knows it well.'' The
authorship of this epitaph is uncertain, as the Life says
it was inscribed on his grave by the people of Gela, while
Athenaeus and Pausanias attribute it to Aeschylus. Probably
most people would agree that only the poet himself could
have praised the soldier and kept silence about the poetry.
Of the marvellous traditions which gathered round his name
little need be said. Pausanias' tale, how Dionysus appeared
to the poet when a boy, asleep in his father's vineyard, and
bade him write a tragedy---or the account in the Life, how
he was killed by an eagle letting fall on his head a tortoise
whose shell the bird was unable to crack---clearly belong to
