hich he introduced, was regarded by the
Athenians as its father or founder, just as Homer was of Epic poetry,
and Herodotus of History. AEschylus was born at Eleusis in Attica in
B.C. 525, and was thus contemporary with Simonides and Pindar. He
fought with his brother Cynaegirus at the battle of Marathon, and also
at those of Artemisium, Salamis, and Plataea. In B.C. 484 he gained
his first tragic prize. In 468 he was defeated in a tragic contest by
his younger rival Sophocles; shortly afterwards he retired to the court
of king Hiero, at Syracuse, He died at Gela, in Sicily, in 456, in the
69th year of his age. It is unanimously related that an eagle,
mistaking the poet's bald head for a stone, let a tortoise fall upon it
in order to break the shell, thus fulfilling an oracle predicting that
he was to die by a blow from heaven. The improvements introduced into
tragedy by AEschylus concerned both its form and composition, and its
manner of representation. In the former his principal innovation was
the introduction of a second actor; whence arose the dialogue, properly
so called, and the limitation of the choral parts, which now became
subsidiary. His improvements in the manner of representing tragedy
consisted in the introduction of painted scenes, drawn according to the
rules of perspective. He furnished the actors with more appropriate
and more magnificent dresses, invented for them more various and
expressive masks, and raised their stature to the heroic size by
providing them with thick-soled cothurni or buskins. AEschylus excels
in representing the superhuman, in depicting demigods and heroes, and
in tracing the irresistible march of fate. His style resembles the
ideas which it clothes: it is bold, sublime, and full of gorgeous
imagery, but sometimes borders on the turgid.

SOPHOCLES, the younger rival and immediate successor of Aeschylus in
the tragic art, was born at Colonus, a village about a mile from
Athens, in B.C. 495. We have already adverted to his wresting the
tragic prize from AEschylus in 468, from which time he seems to have
retained the almost undisputed possession of the Athenian stage, until
a young but formidable rival arose in the person of Euripides. The
close of his life was troubled with family dissensions. Iophon, his
son by an Athenian wife, and therefore his legitimate heir, was jealous
of the affection manifested by his father for his grandson Sophocles,
the offspring of another