Aeschylus: Suppliants

Description

Many of the themes of Aeschylus' Suppliants - the treatment of refugees, forced marriage, ethnic and cultural clashes, decisions on war and peace, political deception - resonate strongly in the world of today. The play was, however, for many years neglected in comparison to Aeschylus' other works, probably in part because it was wrongly believed to be very early and hence 'primitive', and this edition, aimed primarily at advanced undergraduates and graduate students, is the first since 1889 to offer an accessible English commentary based on the Greek text. This provides particular help with the peculiarities of tragic, especially Aeschylean, Greek. An extensive introduction discusses the Danaid myth and its many variations, the four-play production (tetralogy) of which Suppliants formed part, the underlying social and religious issues and presuppositions, the conditions of performance, and the place of Suppliants in Aeschylus' work, among other topics.

Alan H. Sommerstein is Emeritus Professor of Greek at the University of Nottingham, where he taught for forty years. His publications include editions with translation and/or commentary of all the extant and fragmentary plays of Aeschylus, thirteen fragmentary plays of Sophocles, all the extant plays of Aristophanes, and Menander's comedy The Woman from Samos. He has also published a general study of Aeschylean tragedy and is editor of the forthcoming The Encyclopedia of Greek Comedy.