The "father of tragedy," one of the three great Greek tragedians
The earliest of the great Greek tragedians, revered as the "father of tragedy." He raised the number of actors from one to two, making real dramatic conflict possible for the first time. His surviving Oresteia trilogy tells of a chain of blood-vengeance killings that ends in a trial before an Athenian court — turning the ancient cycle of "blood for blood" toward the public justice of the city. He fought at Marathon; his epitaph names only his soldiership, not his plays — a telling choice in itself.
The Oresteia ends with Athena founding a court and having citizen jurors judge Orestes for the killing of his mother. With this turn, Aeschylus handed the blood-debt of private vengeance over to the law of the city — here, for the first time, drama takes on the weight of asking how justice is possible.
Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.