Aeschylus Flashcards
Llewellyn-Jones
“it is certain that the Greeks widely exaggerated the significance of their victories”
“the Persians (at least in their official presentations) did not consider themselves defeated by the Greeks”
“the Battle of Salamis entered into Greek legend”
“the Athenians, who, many decades later, sitting in their open aired theatre carved into the rock of the Acropolis which Xerxes had so maliciously defiled, laughed”
“Darius’ failure in Greece was behind Xerxes’ ambition to conquer it”
Cartledge
by the time of The Persians the process of othering and inventing the Barbarian as a stereotype was well underway
the battle put at stale “the triumph or failure of a way of life”
Hall
“it is beyond all doubt an absolutely truthful record of the ways in which the Athenians liked to think about their great enemy… however ‘racist’ it may now seem, in his evocation of Persia”
the Barbarian character is presented as luxuriant and materialistic, emotional, impulsive and despotic and therefore especially liable to its consequences (hard to feel bad for them due to this)
Haubold
“for him [Xerxes], to cross the Bitter River and attack mainland Greece was to prove himself a true ruler of the world”
Holland
Shows how Xerxes changed from exultant to in rages
