Two Notes on the Career of Aeschylus

Abstract

Abstract The first part of this article seeks to reinforce the case made by S. Scullion that the fabled contest between Aeschylus, Pratinas and Choerilus in about 499, which was supposed to be the occasion of Aeschylus’s first dramatic production, is an invention and that ancient scholars did not possess detailed archival information (if any information at all) concerning the early years of his career. The second part argues that, while the tradition that the poet died at Gela in Sicily is very probably true, he almost certainly did not intend to settle there permanently and there is no reason to believe that he left Athens soon after presenting the Oresteia in 458. It then considers Aeschylus’s possible route from Athens to Sicily and argues that he could not easily have made the journey before the Athenians seized Naupactus, probably in 456.