The Persians

This section of The Persians includes the parodos (the introductory exposition sung by the chorus), and the first episode, which introduces Queen Atossa and her premonitory dream. The parodos shows the audience the geographic extent of the Persian Empire, stressing its vastness; it also describes at length the legendary heroes and warriors that joined the army from coalition partners, including the nations of Cissia, Egypt, and Babylon. This demonstrates the broad alliance of Persian power to showcase the threat that Persia posed to Greece—and to emphasize the might of the Greek warriors who thwarted this invasion. To further heighten the Greeks’ achievement, Aeschylus does honor to their foes, respecting them as warriors. However, the names the chorus lists have been invented by Aeschylus to sound exotic to Greek ears—it is not a real account of Persian military leaders.

The chorus foreshadows the coming disaster when it worries that Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire in Aeschylus’s play, could be threatened while depopulated of its men. In this atmosphere of heightened dread, Queen Atossa anxiously awaits news of her son’s military campaign. Atossa is presented with two signs that indicate Xerxes has been defeated: a prophetic dream and an omen in the form of an eagle cowed by an aggressive hawk. Bird augury and dream interpretation figured frequently in ancient Greek prophesy; however, this element of the play is one of the first depictions of a dream in ancient literature. Aeschylus uses omens to build dramatic irony. While the audience readily interprets these fairly obvious warning correctly, Queen Atossa remains in denial about their meaning as the counselors enable her unwillingness to accept the truth. Equivocating, they reassure her that things will turn out well while hedging their bets: “Mother, we do not wish to say what would make you either unduly fearful or unduly optimistic” (Lines 215-16). Unlike the plot of many Greek tragedies, where a protagonist’s error results in catastrophe, the chorus’s misinterpretation of Atossa’s dream has little bearing on their situation. Xerxes has already been defeated, regardless of how they interpret the available omens.

Aeschylus is frequently referred to as the father of Greek tragedy because many of the innovations he brought to the stage became codified by later playwrights such as Sophocles and Euripides. One of Aeschylus’s new ideas was to add a second main actor to scenes to better differentiate the protagonists from the chorus and to increase dramatic tension through dialogue. Because this hasn’t yet become standard dramaturgical practice, in The Persians, scenes alternate between featuring one to two main actors at a time. In this section, Atossa takes the lead role.