Persians

“The Persians takes us back to the very air that the Athenians breathed, we are made to feel what Athenians felt about Athens and Persia and war and peace and conquest and empire” G H Gellie

G H Gellie believes that The Persians, an ancient Greek tragedy, gives us a unique understanding of how Athenians felt about some important issues in their lives. This play, written by Aeschylus in the 5th Century B.C., deals with historical subjects, the Persian Wars, and provides evidence of contemporary life in Athens.
The Persians celebrates the Athenian victory over the Persians in the navel battle at Salamis in 480 B.C. Surprisingly Aeschylus presents the Athenian’s enemies in a sympathetic and noble way. When reading Aeschylus’s The Persians, we become a voyeur of the Ancient World. We learn about the function of tragic drama in Athenian life, the strength and importance of Athenian patriotism, the differences between the forms of government such as democracy and oligarchy, the ...