he second scene:

The 12 Elders, the gerontes have already taken their seats in the orchestra and Atossa, the queen is carried in on her sedan, followed by her suite. The old men fall down on their knees to welcome her.

“Hail, queen, of Persia's high-zoned dames supreme,
Age-honour'd mother of the potent Xerxes,
Imperial consort of Darius, hail!
The wife, the mother of the Persians' god,
If yet our former glories fade not from us”.

The hierarchy of the kingdom has gathered. Once again there is a war.

And the queen points out what is troubling everyone: What, if the “former glories fade”?

“My son, let conquest crown his arms, would shine

With dazzling glory; but should Fortune frown,
The state indeed presumes not to arraign
His sovereignty; yet how, his honor lost,
How shall he sway the scepter of this land?”

As if this “hypeuthynos” weren’t spoken to the audience of Athens, (the exact text is: hypeuthynus polis), Xerxes is not responsible or to be blamed as it is decided by the laws of democracy. No responsibility towards the "polis", the town, state, the people. It is a political attack, relating to the public law and everyone in the audience knew, what Aeschylus was referring to: the destiny of victory! When Miltiades, the winner of Marathon lost another battle, he was made responsible by the ‘polis” and Xerxes was not to have the same destiny as Themistokles, the winner of Salamis. It is a mother who talks.

The scene continues with the motives of fear and worries. The dream that one finds in so many plays probably belongs to the oldest elements of the tragedy. And the audience knew what she was talking about when she said;

“Alethought two women stood before my eyes
Gorgeously vested, one in Persian robes
Adorn'd, the other in the Doric garb.
With more than mortal majesty they moved,

………………………………………….The one,
Exulting in her rich array, with pride
Arching her stately neck, obey'd the reins;
The other with indignant fury spurn'd
The car, and dash'd it piecemeal, rent the reins,
And tore the yoke asunder...”

This vision is nothing else but the last scene of the tragedy. And the queen, calmed down by the elders, is ready to leave, but in the last moment, she has a question.

Who are these Athenians? And the word she uses is quite interesting in the original version. Asking who is the “ruler” of Athens she says “poimanor”, shepard.

“Slaves to no lord, they own no kingly power” is the answer.

This is the moment where the messenger arrives.

There is only one thing Atossa wants to know: Who is not dead?

“Xerxes himself lives, and beholds the light”

The report of the messenger is as famous as it is authentic. For historians it is the oldest document about the battle at Salamis and the Athenians certainly rose from their seats when they saw the play for the first time. I assume that Aeschylus chose these lines on purpose to get the audience where he wanted to have it. After this uprising enthusiastic feeling he wanted to confront them with the deeper meaning of his play. And so he adds already two things into the messenger’s report. “A man from Athens..” and “There is an island close to Salamis..” without mentioning any names. The “man from Athens” was the messenger who had drawn Xerxes into the trap by announcing the Athenians were about to leave. The island was Psyttaleia where the Athenians had massacred the Persians who tried to escape. According to Herodotus, Themistokles sent the messenger. Aristeides was in charge of Psyttaleia. They were political rivals. Aristeides had been banned two years before the battle by the same ostrakismos Themistokles had to face now. The fact that he was rehabilitated later and earned great honors organizing the anti-Persian sea union of Delos makes the reference to Themistoklees ambiguous like a warning. The mentioning of both part leaders in the “Persians” is meant as a warning towards both parties, to put the common interest above political differences as Aeschylus could see (however not the politicians), the central problems of the “polis”.

The Athenians, who would dominate Greece culturally and politically through the fifth century BC and through part of the fourth, regarded the wars against Persia as their greatest and most characteristic moment. For all their importance, though, the Persian Wars began inauspiciously. In the middle of the sixth century BC, the Greek city-states along the coast of Asia Minor came under the control of the Lydians and their king, Croesus (560-546 BC). However, when the Persians conquered the Lydians in 546 BC, all the states subject to the Lydians became subject to the Persians. The Persians controlled their new subject-states very closely; they appointed individuals to rule the states as tyrants. They also required citizens to serve in the Persian army and to pay fairly steep taxes. Smarting under these new burdens and anxious for independence, the tyrant of Miletus, Aristagoras, began a democratic rebellion in 499 BC. Aristagoras was an opportunist. The Persians had placed him in power, but when he persuaded the Persians to launch a failed expedition against Naxos, he began to fear for his life. So he fomented a popular rebellion against the Persians and went to the Greek mainland for support. He went first to the Spartans, since they were the most powerful state in Greece, but the Spartans seem to have seen right through him. When he approached the Athenians, they promised him twenty ships. In 498 BC, the Athenians conquered and burned Sardis, which was the capital of Lydia, and all the Greek cities in Asia Minor joined the revolt. The Athenians, however, lost interest and went home; by 495 BC, the Persians, under king Darius I (521-486 BC), had restored control over the rebellious Greek cities.
And there it should have ended. But Athens had gotten the attention of the Persians, who desired that Athens be punished for the role it played in the destruction of Sardis. The Persians also had Hippias, the tyrant of Athens who had been deposed by Cleisthenes in 508 BC. So in 490 BC, the Persians launched an expedition against Athens. They were met, however, by one of their former soldiers, Miltiades. He had been an outstanding soldier in the Persian army, but he took to his heels when he angered Darius. Unlike other Athenians, he knew the Persian army and he knew its tactics. The two armies, with the Athenians led by Miltiades, met at Marathon in Attica and the Athenians roundly defeated the invading army. This battle, the battle of Marathon (490 BC), is perhaps the single most important battle in Greek history. Had the Athenians lost, Greece would have eventually come under the control of the Persians and all the subsequent culture and accomplishments of the Greeks would probably not have taken the form they did.

How could one today, 2500 years after the first performance of the play, still excite an audience with this play?

Aeschylus has shown the way throughout the tragedy. It is not a patriotic play (enkomion); it plays in the capital of the defended; the messenger speaks with the voice of the defended. It is a “pathos” a suffering. Never had so many died in one day, noble Persians dying in infamy, dishonor, and ugliness.

But what is more important: Never had a hero been defeated so terribly by his own ego.

Xerxes, a plain mortal thought to be stronger and more powerful than the gods or his fate. Hybris. His Hybris was a contravention against all the wisdom of every political leader: to calculate all possibilities into his plans. The “Persians” was not written as a play against war. Aeschylus was not a pacifist and he was realistic enough to know that a passionate “Never again war!” would not effect anything. But the “Persians” the oldest of all Greek tragedies certainly is a political play. “Think of all possible solutions” was the message Aeschylus gave to the Athenian audience in 472. Think of the end. It was the end Xerxes did not consider at all. There is no difference between enemies and enemies, both can become the defeated. Or more clearly: Realize that things you noticed of your enemies will be noticed of you if you continue to behave the same way your enemies behave.

And by pointing out the possibilities of what was reality, what could be or might be reality at the end, Aeschylus created a feeling of perplexity. Exactly at this point where the presence becomes transparent, even nowadays plays like the “Persians” can still create this same feeling of perplexity.

Timeless, ageless theatre.

(All translation by Robert Potter)

 ©2001 Andrea Kapsaski

Andrea Kapsaski is a scholar, poet, translator
and active theatre producer in Greece

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Winter 2001