The Persians
Notebook
Aeschylus's The Persians (472 BC) is the oldest surviving play in the world and the only extant Greek tragedy on a contemporary historical subject. Set in the Persian court at Susa, it presents the defeat of Xerxes' expedition against Greece—and especially the sea-battle of Salamis, in which Aeschylus himself had fought—from the vanquished enemy's point of view, as the queen Atossa, the ghost of Darius, and the shattered Xerxes lament the catastrophe. The translation is E.D.A. Morshead's.
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