Aeschylus: Eumenides

Professor Sommerstein here presents a freshly constituted text, with introduction and commentary, of Eumenides, the climactic play of the only surviving complete Greek tragic trilogy, the Oresteia of Aeschylus. Eumenides is of all Athenian tragic dramas the one most consciously designed to be relevant to the situation of the Athenian state at the time of its performance (458 BC), and seems to have contained daring innovations both in technique and in ideas. The introduction and commentary to this edition seek to bring out how Aeschylus shaped to his purpose the legends he inherited, and ended the tragic story of Agamemnon’s family in a celebration of Athenian civic unity and justice. The commentary also pays detailed attention to the linguistic, metrical and textual problems to be encountered by the reader.

Preface; References and abbreviations; Introduction; 1. The legend; 2. Erinyes, Eumenides and Semnai; 3. The Areopagus and homicide; 4. The life and work of Aeschylus; 5. Justice and the gods; 6. A play for its day; 7. Production; 8. The text; Sigla; Eumenides; Commentary; Appendix; Indexes.