Ἱκέτιδες

The Suppliants

Author

Aeschylus

Language

Classical Attic Greek

Year

463 BCE

Country

Classical Athens

Genre

Drama / Theatre / Plays

graeco-romanepicstragedies

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The Suppliants, also called The Suppliant Maidens, The Suppliant Women, or Supplices is a play by Aeschylus. It was probably first performed "only a few years previous to the Oresteia, which was brought out 458 BC." It seems to be the first play in a tetralogy, sometimes referred to as the Danaid Tetralogy, which probably included the lost plays The Egyptians, and The Daughters of Danaus, and the satyr play Amymone. It was long thought to be the earliest surviving play by Aeschylus due to the relatively anachronistic function of the chorus as the protagonist of the drama. However, evidence discovered in the mid-twentieth century shows it was one of Aeschylus' last plays, definitely written after The Persians and possibly after Seven Against Thebes. One reason The Suppliants was thought to be an early play was "its preponderance of choral lyric,. .. a succession of choral odes that are among the densest, most opulent, most purely lovely things in all Greek poetry."