PREFACE.
Æschylus, son of Euphorion, an Athenian of the deme of Eleusis, was born, B.C. 525. He consecrated his life to the tragic art from his youth upwards: yet he is held to have been a valiant soldier, and with his brother Cynegirus to have fought at Marathon, and at Salamis, and at Platæa as some say. Afterwards, being at variance with the Athenians, he went away from them unto Sicily, and dwelt at the court of Hiero, tyrant of Gela, and was held by him in high honour. He died in his sixty-ninth year by a strange fate, whereof he had been warned in an oracle, saying A stroke from heaven shall slay thee. For as he was walking on the shore, an eagle, that had snatched up a tortoise into the air, let it drop; and it fell upon him, and he died.
Such is almost all that we are told, and more than we can be said to know certainly, of the life of the poet, whose masterpiece I have done my best to render into English verse, with the hope of helping one or two of those to whom the original is a closed book, to share in its treasures.
The remaining fragments of tradition—the cause of his quarrel with his countrymen—the statement that he divulged the Sacred Mysteries—remain, not now to be verified. Of
