Oresteia

Aeschylus, the earliest of the great Attic tragedians, presented his Oresteia at Athens' City Dionysia festival in 458 BCE. Born in the last quarter of the sixth century, Aeschylus had fought with the victorious Greeks in one and probably both of the Persian Wars (190 and 480-79). He died around 456 at about seventy years of age in Gela, Sicily. His epitaph records his role as a soldier at Marathon, not his artistic achievements, but these were many. The author of more than seventy plays, he won his first of thirteen tragic victories in 484. Of these plays, only seven remain. The Oresteia is Aeschylus' only complete surviving trilogy; the satyr play with which it was first performed, Proteus, is lost. Peter Meineck has aimed to translate the Oresteia for the modern stage.