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Is Aeschylus’ Persians triumphalist? A view from the theatre auditorium

Scholars of Greek theatre cannot but feel surprise and dismay when this question is put to them in such unqualified terms. It implies that dramatic texts can be said to have a single meaning for their audiences (or readers), a meaning that was the one envisaged by the author, whose intentions we can somehow recover. At the risk of oversimplifying, let us remind ourselves that no poetic text, no work of literature, should be treated as a monolith. The intentions of an author are unrecoverable. The only thing we have in front of us, that allows us to draw meaning, is the text; in the case of theatre, we also have the performance implied by the text.

Even a work like Aeschylus’ Persians, which was produced just eight years after the invasion and defeat of Xerxes’ army, should not be forced into such a monolithic interpretation. Regarding the play as triumphalist reduces it to something simplistic that it demonstrably wasn’t. But the play did not start its life in Classical scholarship well, and, unfortunately, scholarly preconceptions die hard. Two factors contributed to its poor reception by modern (early 20th century) classicists: first, its status as the earliest surviving play of the Greek canon. This was linked to its perceived ‘crudeness’, supposedly suggested by its monotonous dramatic action and primitive dramaturgy. Scholars even denied that the play had a stage building at its original performance. The poet – it was supposed – had not yet developed the majestic art which was responsible for his creation of his masterpiece, the Oresteia. The second factor was that, in the absence of substantial narrative sources for the Persian wars (apart from Herodotus’ Histories), Aeschylus’ Persians appeared to be a historical source parallel to Herodotus and ripe for historical comparisons. It is still often analysed in relation to historical events alongside Herodotus Book 7. This means that its status as theatre is not always taken into consideration. In fact, ancient scholars were not more innocent of that: it is, in fact, likely that the Persians’ historical content was the factor that ensured the survival of this play already in antiquity.

Undoubtedly, Aeschylus’ Persians draws heavily on the recent historical events, and it is likely that the poet himself had fought in the battles of the Persian Wars. Unquestionably, Persians resonates with a sense of celebration at the (seemingly) final defeat of the enormous Persian threat. In the years following the retreat of the Persian army, with the vast changes in the political landscape of Greece, as Athens was becoming the wealthy and mighty leader of an empire that spread across the Aegean, the significance of the victory over the Persians for both Athens and for the Greek world as a whole was becoming increasingly apparent. Furthermore, it is likely that the Athenian landscape, still scarred by the Persian invasion that burnt down precious landmarks of the Athenian polis would have been a powerful, if unsettling, inspiration for the play. Aeschylean tragedy is profoundly aware of the sheer symbolic power of theatrical space; the production of Persians in the theatre of Dionysus against the background of scorched Athenian land and hastily re-constructed buildings and walls would add incredible power to the play. The destruction of Athenian earth and its buildings would momentarily, in the imagination of the audience, contrast with what the chorus sings about: the destruction of Asia. If, as I have hypothesised elsewhere, the play was at some point re-performed at the Dionysian festival of the deme Eleusis, Aeschylus’ birthplace, the theatre’s (likely) physical background of the Salamis straits would add enormous weight to the description of the Battle of Salamis described at Pers. 278-471.

Surely, these considerations are enough for us to regard the play as triumphalist? This is categorically not the case, even if one espouses (with good reason) the idea that the Persian characters are portrayed to a large degree as un-Greek, i.e. excessive, feminine, and steeped in decadent luxury. We should not forget something paramount about the nature of Greek theatre: that it is poly-phonic [from the Greek term polus (:many) and phone (:voice)], that is, that by nature, it comprises multiple voices. By multiple voices, I do not mean the voices of the numerous characters and chorus, although this is one aspect of theatrical polyphony. In the simplest terms, a play’s polyphonic nature means that it lends itself to be construed in multiple, even contrasting, ways which can co-exist and be valid at the same time, exactly like multiple voices co-exist in a dialogue or debate played in front of us. This is not exclusive to drama, but drama and performed poetry, more generally, are uniquely suitable to polyphony.

The portrayal of the feminine in the Persians offers us a good example to understand how the play can support multiple interpretations for different audiences and sections of the audience. There is no doubt that there is a strong association between the Persians and the feminine, and this would be recognisable by members of the audiences familiar with the ethnic stereotype. Many would have enjoyed the ideological superiority that this stereotype implies. However, in Greek mythical and poetic imagination, the feminine is not just the opposite of the masculine, and masculine does not always equate ‘better, morally higher’; nor does the feminine equate ‘decadent, morally worse’. In Greek myths and theatre, we can clearly see that feminine regularly inspires awe and reverence (alongside, of course, anxiety for its fearful qualities, that need to be ‘tamed’). This is because of something paramount and unique about the feminine: the feminine is the source of life. Aeschylus’ play makes sure that this is conveyed regularly and clearly. The land of Asia and the Queen are portrayed as grief-stricken mothers who mourn for the catastrophic loss of their precious wealth, the life of Persian youth. This is the wealth of Persia, as the messenger unambiguously states at 249-51:

O you cities of all Asia, O you land of Persia and great

harbour of wealth, one blow has destroyed your great prosperity:

the flower of the Persians is fallen and gone!

It is no wonder that the play insists so much on the natural properties of earth/ nature as the generator of precious life. Furthermore, Xerxes commits hubris of enormous proportions against the ultimate feminine, earth / nature, by yoking the land and the sea under his command, and by subjecting both Asia and Greece to his chariot (symbol of power). He commits hubris against the whole world, against the cosmos. The libations that the Queen pours into the soil are gifts for the earth and the nether powers to drink so that they can be propitiated for this cosmic hubris and for the loss of so much precious life.

Even the luxury of the Persians, another feature that has been widely regarded as a mere orientalising feature and as ultimately contributing to the play’s supposed triumphalism, can also be construed in a polyphonic manner. For a part of the original audience, even possibly for its vast majority, the contemptible ‘un-Greekness’ of Persian luxury may have been the only thing they saw in this depiction. It was certainly one thing that dismayed twentieth century scholars about Aeschylus’ earliest surviving play – and they had not suffered the devastation of war that the original audience had. But the play’s dramaturgy is very creative in making the props that capture the Persian luxury much more than a symbol of decadence and excess.

I will focus here on the costume mainly: from the immense luxury with which the play begins (embodied by the costumes of the Elders and the Queen, and later on, of Darius’ apparition), the play closes with numerous images of torn clothing and rags as symbols of devastation and loss of precious life. When Xerxes poignantly refers to the remnants of his clothing and his empty quiver, it is in the context of collective mourning for the lost youth (Pers. 1014-24). These props have a powerful significance. The royal crimson of Xerxes’ costume, now tattered and devalued, captures the loss of Persia’s real wealth: the lifeblood of its precious youth. Aeschylean poetry had earlier portrayed royal crimson (‘purple’) dye in terms of lifeblood lost in the sea (Pers. 316-17), and would develop this and the crimson fabrics metaphor as a central image in the Oresteia.

So, whilst the play’s celebratory tones should be recognised, because they did have a valid function for its original audience, this does not mean that the play lacks additional meanings that are even contrasting to these initial impressions: the ravaging of the feminine and the precious young life it has nurtured are amongst the most poignant and regrettable facets of war, and are universally recognised as such. The lost wealth that the play mourns is the youth killed and wasted for imperialist purposes. Furthermore, it does not make us construe only Xerxes and his Persian expedition as responsible for these regrettable losses and the spiraling hubris. As the play progresses, the emerging ugly face of imperialist Athens gradually appears through the portrayal of Persian imperialism. Many Ionian poleis that the chorus mourns as having revolted from Persia (Pers. 852-907) had by this point become subjects of Athens, which was rapidly growing into an empire. And in fact, by 472BC, when this play was produced, Athens had suffered more losses in its offensive warfare than in the Persian wars previously fought in defense. Athens, in other words, with its increasing power and wealth and its compulsive expansionism, was well on its way to mirror its most formidable enemy: Persia. The theatre auditorium view is that there is far more imperialist Athens in the Persia of the play than supporters of the triumphalist reading might like to admit.

Department of Classics and Ancient History, Humanities Building, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL