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Ajax:

This is the story of the disgraced military hero Ajax, who is insulted by the commanders of the Greek forces after the end of the Trojan war. He conspired to 🤬 the King Agamemnon and the hero Odysseus. After being thwarted by the intervention of Athena, Ajax throws himself on his sword.

This is a story revolving around the key tragic theme of hubris, as well as a character’s ability to warp their behaviour through their unworthy emotions.

Oedipus

This play is regarded as one of the pinnacle writing achievements of the Ancient Greek Era. The complex story of a hot-headed but otherwise noble king of Thebes, who is entangled in a web patriarchal conflict, a man’s battle against fate and the tendency of man to challenge his nature.

The overarching themes of this play are only more relevant today, as the emotions motivating each of the characters in Sophocles’s masterpiece are still visible in entertainment today.

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Sophocles has a lasting legacy because he was believed to be one of the strongest playwrights in Ancient Greece and won many awards. He even beat Aeschylus and other famous playwrights in some competitions. He is remembered through his 7 surviving works.

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He was believed to have been born just outside Athens in 496 BC.

His father Sophillus was a wealthy weapons maker.

As a wealthy Athenian, he studied poetry, music, dance and gymnastics at school.

At the age of 15 he showed talent in music and dance and was chosen to lead a choir. This foreshadowed his later involvement in performance for the rest of his life.

Sophocles contributed to Athenian life in many ways, not just as a playwright but as a diplomat and a general.

In 443 BC Pericles chose Sophocles to be the treasurer of the Delian Confederation. This meant he was in charge of collecting taxes from the states under the control of Athens.

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This is an image from one Aeschylus first ever plays. In this image it was translated for modern reading

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Bust

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Bust

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Aeschylus was an Ancient Greek tragedian. He is often described as the being the “father of tragedy”.  Aeschylus wrote 90 plays although only seven of them have survived to today. He expanded the number of characters in theatre and allowed conflict among them to cause tension while previously characters only had interacted with the chorus. Aeschylus had served in the Greek Army against the Persians. This was a turbulent time where Greece had only recently created its democratic form and had thrown off tyranny. Aeschylus was a notable participant in Athens’ major dramatic competition, the Great Dionysia, which was part of the festival of Dionysus. Every year at this festival, each of the three selected dramatists would produce three tragedies and the public would decide who the winner was. He won his first victory in 484 BC since starting in 499BC. His brother was killed fighting the Persians at Marathon while Aeschylus was recorded being wounded, hence his earliest play was tilted ‘the Persians’. This play was produced in the spring of 472BC for the competition and won first prize. Around this time Aeschylus is said to have visited the Greek city state of Syracuse in Sicily to present the play “Persians” once again at the tyrant Hieron I’s court in Syracuse. Aeschylus’ later career is a record of sustained dramatic success, though he is said to have suffered one famous and memorable defeat, by the works of the novice Sophocles. Whose entry to the Dionysian festival of 468BC was deemed victories over the seasoned Aeschylus’s works. Aeschylus proceeded to bounce back with his Oedipus trilogy (this is the third play out of the seven.) After producing the masterpiece among his extant works, the Oresteia trilogy and in 458BC, Aeschylus went to Sicily again. It is here that Aeschylus would die. Historians have recorded Aeschylus’ death at Gela (on Sicily’s southern coast) in 456/455 BC aged at the ripe old age of 69, which was much longer life that many in the ancient world.  A story / myth was created by an unknown comic writer, who claimed that an eagle had dropped a tortoise on top of him, which quite simply, is completely untrue. At Gela he was given a public funeral, with both sacrifices and dramatic performances being held at his grave, which subsequently became and well known and famous place of pilgrimage for many great writers to come to the course of time. Aeschylus’ influence on the development of tragedy and ancient Greek theatre was huge and fundamental. Previous to him, Greek drama was limited to one actor (who is known as the protagonist, meaning first actor in ancient Greek) and a chorus who engaged in a largely static recitation. The main actor would assume different roles by changing masks and costumes, but he was limited to engaging in dialogue only with chorus. (The chorus was a group of actors who responded to and on the main action of a play with song, dance and recitation.) Aeschylus, by adding a second actor (the deuteragonist) with whom the first could converse and make dialogue with. This immensely increased the drama’s possibilities for dialogue and dramatic tension and allowed more variety and freedom in plot construction. Aristotle is recorded stating in his writing ‘Poetics’ that Aeschylus “reduced the chorus” role and “made the plot revolve around the leading actor. Aeschylus was an innovator in other ways as well. He made good use of stage settings and stage machinery, which added to these incredible scenic effects. It was something unknown and mystical to the audience. To see a god figure suspended in the air, made many common folk believe that this was actually a person of a higher power and that his message must be adhered and taken into account. He designed the actors costumes himself, trained his choruses in their songs and dances, and probably acted in most of his own plays, this being the usual practice among most Greek dramatists to truly add their own flavour to the article. If this is not enough to impress you of this man’s great achievements. His plays have stood the test to time and have lasted the test of time. His plays consisted of complex and intricate mystical and compelling lyrical language that are intertwined into the thorough architecture of their plots, and in the universal themes which they explore so honestly. Aeschylus’ language in both dialogue and choral lyric is marked by force, majesty and emotional intensity. It is characteristic of Aeschylus to sustain an image or group of images through a scene as a backdrop to make the whole play just that slight more spectacular. The ship of state in ‘Seven Against Thebes’, the birds of prey in ‘Suppliants’, the snare in ‘Agamemnon’. More generally, Aeschylus deploys throughout a play or trilogy of plays several leading motifs that are often associated with a particular word or groups of words. In the Oresteia, for example, such themes as wrath, mastery, persuasion, and the contrast of light and darkness and the use of music is all unpatrolled. He used the Orchestration as supplied to careful construction enabled Aeschylus to give Greek drama a more truly artistic and intellectual form.  Aeschylean tragedy deals with the plights, decisions and dates of individuals with whom the destiny of the community or state in closely boubnd up. All of it relates to the topical events happening in this community. 300 RISE OF AN EMPIRE WAS INSPIRED BY THE PERSIANS PLAY. The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779. A rhymed verse for the chorus and a blank verse for the iambic trimeters were used and the convention was adopted by most translates for the next century. Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus. Native name	ΑἰσχύλοςBorn	c. 523 BCEleusisDied	c. 456 BC (aged c. 67)

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Aeschylus was an Ancient Greek tragedian. He is often described as the being the “father of tragedy”.  Aeschylus wrote 90 plays although only seven of them have survived to today. He expanded the number of characters in theatre and allowed conflict among them to cause tension while previously characters only had interacted with the chorus. Aeschylus had served in the Greek Army against the Persians. This was a turbulent time where Greece had only recently created its democratic form and had thrown off tyranny. Aeschylus was a notable participant in Athens’ major dramatic competition, the Great Dionysia, which was part of the festival of Dionysus. Every year at this festival, each of the three selected dramatists would produce three tragedies and the public would decide who the winner was. He won his first victory in 484 BC since starting in 499BC. His brother was killed fighting the Persians at Marathon while Aeschylus was recorded being wounded, hence his earliest play was tilted ‘the Persians’. This play was produced in the spring of 472BC for the competition and won first prize. Around this time Aeschylus is said to have visited the Greek city state of Syracuse in Sicily to present the play “Persians” once again at the tyrant Hieron I’s court in Syracuse. Aeschylus’ later career is a record of sustained dramatic success, though he is said to have suffered one famous and memorable defeat, by the works of the novice Sophocles. Whose entry to the Dionysian festival of 468BC was deemed victories over the seasoned Aeschylus’s works. Aeschylus proceeded to bounce back with his Oedipus trilogy (this is the third play out of the seven.) After producing the masterpiece among his extant works, the Oresteia trilogy and in 458BC, Aeschylus went to Sicily again. It is here that Aeschylus would die. Historians have recorded Aeschylus’ death at Gela (on Sicily’s southern coast) in 456/455 BC aged at the ripe old age of 69, which was much longer life that many in the ancient world.  A story / myth was created by an unknown comic writer, who claimed that an eagle had dropped a tortoise on top of him, which quite simply, is completely untrue. At Gela he was given a public funeral, with both sacrifices and dramatic performances being held at his grave, which subsequently became and well known and famous place of pilgrimage for many great writers to come to the course of time. Aeschylus’ influence on the development of tragedy and ancient Greek theatre was huge and fundamental. Previous to him, Greek drama was limited to one actor (who is known as the protagonist, meaning first actor in ancient Greek) and a chorus who engaged in a largely static recitation. The main actor would assume different roles by changing masks and costumes, but he was limited to engaging in dialogue only with chorus. (The chorus was a group of actors who responded to and on the main action of a play with song, dance and recitation.) Aeschylus, by adding a second actor (the deuteragonist) with whom the first could converse and make dialogue with. This immensely increased the drama’s possibilities for dialogue and dramatic tension and allowed more variety and freedom in plot construction. Aristotle is recorded stating in his writing ‘Poetics’ that Aeschylus “reduced the chorus” role and “made the plot revolve around the leading actor. Aeschylus was an innovator in other ways as well. He made good use of stage settings and stage machinery, which added to these incredible scenic effects. It was something unknown and mystical to the audience. To see a god figure suspended in the air, made many common folk believe that this was actually a person of a higher power and that his message must be adhered and taken into account. He designed the actors costumes himself, trained his choruses in their songs and dances, and probably acted in most of his own plays, this being the usual practice among most Greek dramatists to truly add their own flavour to the article. If this is not enough to impress you of this man’s great achievements. His plays have stood the test to time and have lasted the test of time. His plays consisted of complex and intricate mystical and compelling lyrical language that are intertwined into the thorough architecture of their plots, and in the universal themes which they explore so honestly. Aeschylus’ language in both dialogue and choral lyric is marked by force, majesty and emotional intensity. It is characteristic of Aeschylus to sustain an image or group of images through a scene as a backdrop to make the whole play just that slight more spectacular. The ship of state in ‘Seven Against Thebes’, the birds of prey in ‘Suppliants’, the snare in ‘Agamemnon’. More generally, Aeschylus deploys throughout a play or trilogy of plays several leading motifs that are often associated with a particular word or groups of words. In the Oresteia, for example, such themes as wrath, mastery, persuasion, and the contrast of light and darkness and the use of music is all unpatrolled. He used the Orchestration as supplied to careful construction enabled Aeschylus to give Greek drama a more truly artistic and intellectual form.  Aeschylean tragedy deals with the plights, decisions and dates of individuals with whom the destiny of the community or state in closely boubnd up. All of it relates to the topical events happening in this community. 300 RISE OF AN EMPIRE WAS INSPIRED BY THE PERSIANS PLAY. The first translation of the seven plays into English was by Robert Potter in 1779. A rhymed verse for the chorus and a blank verse for the iambic trimeters were used and the convention was adopted by most translates for the next century. Anna Swanwick produced a verse translation in English of all seven surviving plays as The Dramas of Aeschylus. Native name	ΑἰσχύλοςBorn	c. 523 BCEleusisDied	c. 456 BC (aged c. 67)

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By Hristos Paraskevas AND Callum Stanford
Occupation: Playwright a soldier
Children: Euphorion Euaeon
Parent: Euphorion(father)
Relatives: Cynaegirus
(brother) Ameinias
(sister) Philocles (nephew)
He was a prominent figure and the festival of Dionysus

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Euripides was a tragedian/comedian playwright who lived between the time of 480 BCE and 406 BCE. Born on the Greek island of Somalis and son of Cleito (mother) and Mnesarchus (father) who lived as retailers and eventually expanded their business by moving to a village close to Athens (unknown name) One day Mnesarchus visited an Oracle who revealed to him that his son would win "Crowns of victory." Taking what he could of the prophecy he made Euripides do athletics which he had won 5 tournaments which would be the same tournaments he won in the festivals.. Later in life philosophy and painting under the scholars Proclicius and Anaxagoras. He from time to time retreated to a cave on his home island of Somalis which became known as the Euripides cave, and the headquarters of the cult of Euripides. He died naturally in 406 BCE at the age of seventy four.

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Of the three great playwrights, Euripides was the youngest and last to wright his first play (of which he has written ninety two and of which we have 19.) Euripides wrote both comedies and tragedies, with his most notable works including Medea, Hippolytus, Electra, The Trojan Women and Bachae. A number of his plays were also written in parlay with the philosopher Socrates. Euripides is similar to the alternate future theories we do for movies and books today, with many of his works retelling or adding on to existing plays and myths to make all of his characters more human like rather than heroic, having either a tragic or comedic effect. The most notable of these is Hippolytus which is a retelling of the tale of Theseus and his son Hippolytus which has been lost. The play is set in Troezen and begins with Aphrodite in the prologue telling the audience the events of the previous events. She explains that Hippolytus has swarn chastity with his wife and how Artemis (goddess of the hunt) seeks revenge on Hippolytus. Then the chorus, who play as the married women of Troezen explain to the audience that Artemis convinced Aphrodite to curse Hippolytus's step mother Phaedra to fall in love with him, despite Phaedra not having slept or eaten in 3 days. After realizing she will be caught Phaedra commits suicide and Theseus believes that she died of greif after Hippolytus raped her (dramatic irony). Hippolytus leaves Troezen on his chariot but one of poseiden's bulls rises from the sea and causes Hippolytus to crash and Theseus leaves him to die slowly. One thousand five hundred and thirty four years after it was writeen in 428 BCE, Hippolytus was adapted on film in 1962 in a movie called Phaedra. Euripides's plays was important for the culture of the Athenean greeks as it provided a funny or tragic twist to the stories they knew.