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M AP

OF

X ERXES ’

AN D M ARDONIUS ’ TRAV ELS TO GET TO
Z OOM IN TO SEE IT PRO PERLY !

A THENS
...
It won first prize in the Athenian City Dionysia
...

The parados opens the play (as it does with, you know, all Ancient Greek tragedies), with the Chorus’
opening lines being:
“We are called “The Faithful” of the Persians
who have gone to the land of Greece,
and we are guardians
of the sumptuous palace, rich in gold
...

The Chorus are all ‘troubled excessively, prophetic of disaster’, and ‘anxious about the homecoming
of the King / and his gold-bedecked army’
...
‘And Babylon, rich in gold, sends forth her long trailing column of hordes
of every kind’, including sailors and archers
...

Such is the flower of manhood, such the flower of the
Persian land which as gone
...


Aeschylus then goes on to say how “the King’s army … has already passed over to our neighbour’s
land opposite, / crossing the strait named after Helle, / Athamas’ daughter, on a floating bridge
bound with flaxen ropes
...
They have clearly forgotten
Marathon then
...


Aeschylus portrays the chorus as blaming the Persians’ engagement in ‘wars which destroy walls’ on
Fate, which was apparently ‘ordained by the gods, long ago’
...
A god of good, associated
with light, Ahura Mazda, and a god of evil, connected with darkness, Angra Mainyu, led the
universe as a whole, a world they have created themselves and in which each of them has his own
sphere of activities
...

(…)
When Darius mentions Ahura Mazda as the ‘greatest of gods’ (haya maθišta bagānām) in his
inscriptions, when he names him together ‘with all the gods’ (hadā visaibiš bagaibiš) or ‘the gods
that are’ (utā aniyāha bagāha tayaiy hatiy), then this religion of his is certainly not to be described as
monotheistic
...
How very Greek
...
”

In book 11 of the Odyssey, Odysseus has to give the following libation to the dead, so he can talk to
Teiresias:
“First with a mixture of honey and milk, then with sweet wine, and last of all with water
...
”

And we are back to the original route, at line 105
...

He then focuses on ‘every softly-grieving Persian woman’ who ‘is left alone under the marriage yoke,
/ aching with desire for her man’
...

They come to the end of the parados and ask the following questions:
“How are matters proceeding for Xerxes the King, son of Dareios?
Has the drawn bow won,
or has the mighty pointed
spear been victorious?”

Note the contrast between the ‘drawn bow’ representing the Persians, and the ‘might pointed
spear’, representing the Greeks, there is a previous reference to the ‘Doric spear’
...
She asks them to interpret
her two dreams
...

‘They were faultlessly lovely’
...
He ‘put a yoke-strap beneath their necks’
...
The Doric woman is symbolic for the democratic revolution
...
Note that ‘robes’ in the Greek reads:

ΠέΠλουϛ
This really means feminine robes
...
The eagle could do nothing but submit its body, cowering’
...

The Chorus, who call Queen Atossa ‘mother’, advise her to pray to the gods, and ‘ask them to avert
the disaster and to grant blessing on yourself and your children and all your friends’
...

She then has a total topic change, and asks where in the world Athens is situated (it being the centre
of Greek civilisation and all)
...
Here, they are referring to Ahura
Mazda
...
’
Nicely forgetting that Sparta is the other major city you have to get through, and they won’t be easy
...

After a nice reminder that the Greek ‘army is large enough; it did the Medes great harm’ at
Marathon, she then asks her next most important question: “is their plenty of wealth in their
palace?” This reveals what really matters to the Persians: army size and wealth
...
Aka the silver mines at
Laurium; a new spring was discovered in 483/482BC, and Themistocles persuaded the Athenians to

devote the revenue from the new spring to the navy- expanding the fleet to 200 triremes, just in
time for the battle at Salamis
...
"
There were on average about 10,000 slaves working in the mines at Laurium; however Thucydides
says that during the Peloponnesian war, 20,000 slaves left the mines and went to a Spartancontrolled village in Attica called Decelea
...
(A slight diversion again but it is a bit of aftermath context
...

Then the Queen asks “Who leads them and is sole commander of the army?”
Very important bit
...
(AKA at Marathon etc
...

The Messenger finishes the opening speech saying: “The whole barbarian force has perished
...
”
The Chorus assert that ‘the gods have ordained utter catastrophe for the Persians’- was it the gods
just being gods or was it the gods ordaining catastrophe because of Xerxes’ hubris
...
This is reminiscent of Darius after the
Ionian Revolt between 499 and 493BC
...

The Queen reveals the problem with Persian battle methods: “Which of the leaders placed in high
command must we mourn; we has died and left their positions over their troops vacant and
unmanned?” The Persian leaders lead from the front- and on their white horses (in land battles)
they are incredibly obvious; so if they get killed, their men, totally dependent on their leaders as a
reflection of the tyrannical country they are in, are totally lost and their organisation fails
...
As a mother, this is understandable, but as a ruler, it is less so: she should be just as
concerned, if not more so, with the lives of the men her family have sent off to fight the Greeks
...
During these 30 lines, the Messenger is used to draw yet more
comparisons to Homer, when he says: ‘Matallos from Chrysa died, the commander of ten thousand,
and his thick, bushy, tawny beard changed colour as he dipped it into the dye of the purple sea’
...
HOMERIC EPTHET!

The Queen replies to the parade of dead dudes with an exclamation that what she is ‘hearing is the
height of calamity’ and ‘a cause of disgrace to the Persians and of shrill screams’
...

Aeschylus presents the differing sizes of forces at Salamis:
300 Greeks with 10 ships selected out separately (Herodotus says: 366–378 ships)
1000 Persians with 207 ‘exceptionally fast’ ships
...


The Queen then exasperatedly asks: ‘so is the city of Athens still not sacked?’ If she was a modern
woman, she would be looking disappointedly while wondering who she should throw all her cleaning
products at, bleach first, shortly followed by heavy iron
...
Its
defences could also be referring to the wooden wall (I
...
the navy)
...



“Malignant deity” or “vengeful spirit” appeared, told Xerxes that the Greeks would try to
escape “when the darkness of night fell”
...




“The prescribed punishment for all his men would be beheading” if any Greek escaped
...




Each man is “the king of his own oar”
...




At daybreak, a ‘sung cry of good omen rang out loudly from the Greek side, and
simultaneously a high-pitched echo sounded back in response from the island rocks’
...

Almost as bad as being told there isn’t any bacon when you wake up with a hangover from a
night out
...




A trumpet sounds which motivates the Greeks
...

Our struggle is on behalf of them all!”
o This is met by a “clamour in the Persian tongue”
...




The ramming begins
...
)
o “Straight away a ship struck its bronze beak against a ship” SO MUCH ALLITERATION!
Orange is sibilance, blue is plosive



“At first the flood of the Persian force put up a resistance”



BUT then “the mass of the ships was crowded together in a narrow strait”
...




“They struck each other with their bronze mouthed beaks”
...




“It was no longer possible to glimpse the sea, which was brimming with wrecked
ships and dead men
...
Except Aeschylus calls
the Persians “Barbarians” again – slip-up, or intentional?



Aeschylus tells us that the sea battle went on till “black-eyed night brought it to an
end”– this seems unlikely as most Greek battles go on until it gets too hot, or they
get bored
...

There is yet another misfortune:


“The Persians who were in their physical prime, most noble in spirit and distinguished in
lineage, the ones always foremost in fidelity to the King himself – they died shamefully by
the most inglorious of fates
...
375km2, not really useful anyway),
‘where dance-loving Pan treads the seashores’
...




Xerxes had sent a load of men there to wait and then kill Greek men when they
(theoretically) shipwrecked on the island
...




“They were struck repeatedly by stones thrown from Greek hands, and arrows shot from the
bow-string”
...




Xerxes ‘tore his robes and shrilly screamed’

“The vengeance my son planned to exact from famous Athens turned bitter on him, and the
barbarians whom Marathon destroyed were not enough for him
...

On the way back to Persia for the few surviving Persians, they took this route (ish):

When they got to the river Strymon, next to Amphipolis on the map, “god induced wintry weather,
(…) and the entire sacred flowing Strymon froze”
...
Those that walked quickly across, “before the sun-god’s beams spread
around” survived
...

And the messenger leaves again
...

Chorus do their second solo bit, called a stasimon (the part of the play where the chorus comment
on what has just happened
...

The Chorus then say:
“Xerxes led them away,
Xerxes destroyed them,
Xerxes wrong-headedly drove everything on in seafaring ships”
This is a bit harsh, it’s not entirely fair to pin all the blame on Xerxes, when we see in Herodotus that
he was, apparently, forced into it by a god, and manipulated by Mardonius and even Artabanos
favoured the plan eventually
...

Then after a bit of summarising of the Messenger’s account, the real problem is presented:
“Not for long now will the inhabitants of Asia
abide under Persian rule,
nor pay further tribute
under compulsion to the King,
nor shall they be his subjects,
prostrating themselves on the ground; for the kingly power is destroyed
...

The Queen comes back! Note the entrance ‘on foot’ when before it was ‘in great pomp on a chariot’
...

Note the libation given to propitiate (appease) Darius; the ingredients are:

“Delicious white milk from a pure heifer, glistening honey distilled from flowers, lustral water from
a virgin spring and pure liquid taken from its wild mother, this delightful product of an ancient
vine
...

Over all this, sprinkle white barley and then begin (his) prayers to the helpless ghosts of the dead
...
DO NOT FORGET THIS
...
”
Hubris! And they’re confused; of course he can understand them
...

Darius appears!
Darius: “You are performing a dirge, standing near the tomb, and pitifully summon me, raising
your voices in necromantic wails
...

The Chorus, however, are useless, and just praise Darius, and say that they are ‘afraid to oblige / (…)
afraid to answer’
...
The three differently coloured words are
Darius’ reasons for trusting her to answer him correctly: she is high-born (because rich people
always tell the truth), a lady, and therefore trustworthy…, and is aged, so is wise, theoretically
...

“He foolishly thought that he could overcome all the gods, including Poseidon
...
Both are trying to find a scapegoat for Xerxes’ problems
...
Still in Iran, sheep
are everywhere as the most commonly found livestock
...

Darius advises the Chorus to advise Xerxes or any future Persian king to “take no expedition into
Greek territory, not even if the Persian army is larger” (as it was for Salamis and every other battle in
the Persian wars…)
...
”
“For hubris flowers and produces a crop of calamity, and from it reaps a harvest of lamentation
...
It also links femininity and
hubris- the Greeks who are manly, do not do hubris
...

Darius’ parting lines are: “Lend your souls to please a day at a time, despite the difficulties, since
wealth is of no use to the dead
...

This shows just how much the Persians have gone downhill since Cyrus the Great was in charge 60ish years before, who said “soft lands tend to breed soft men”
...

The Queen then leaves to go to the palace to get clothes- “the misfortune which hurts me most of all
to hear about is that my son is disgraced by his clothes on his body
...

So the Queen is gone, as is Darius, the Chorus are left alone again
...
They clearly forgot
about Marathon- that one was Darius, and was pretty damaging to the Persian army
...

This is the lament of the play, AKA kommos
...

The Chorus make him feel really guilty for a while, asking where all these leaders were (although
they know perfectly well where they are, having already been told by the Messenger)
...
This is a bit unfair on Sparta, as they would have been there if
their fab 300 were not a little bit preoccupied at Thermopylae
...

In the last few lines, Aeschylus sticks in a curious and quite random detail about the triremes in
which the Persians died, saying they were ‘triple banked’ to conclude the kommos and play
...
The opposite of each Persians description is
used for the Greeks and examples in the play are shown
...


“The very soil of Greece is their
ally (because) it starves to death
any excess population
...


“The Greeks prepared their
dinner, in no disorderly manner
but with hearts obedient to
authority, and each sailor
fastened his oar-handle to the
peg, ready for rowing”
...

Saying that, the treatment of
Xerxes by both the Chorus and
Darius is a quite harsh
...
”
“Gold-bedecked army
...

The Queen asks “Besides their
men, what else do they have? Is
there plenty of wealth in their
palace?”  as if the money is
all that matters
...


J

C

CR U E L

F

L

LU X URI O US

D

E

E MO T I O N A L

‘They have spears for close
combat and are equipped with
shields’
...
”
Each man is “the king of his own
oar”
...


“god gave victory in the naval
battle to the Greeks”

MASCULINE

D EM O C R AT I C

O R D E R ED

V I CT O R I O US

M F

FEMININE

D

T

T YR AN N O U S

O

E

ER R AT I C

V

D

D EF E AT E D

Not feminine- “terrifying to look
upon and formidable in battle,
in the steadfast resolve of their
spirit
...
”
“The flower of Asia”
later
says:
“the flower of Persia” “hubris
flowers”
“Xerxes wailed aloud”
“he tore his robes and shrilly
screamed” as he watched his
men die on Psyttaleia
...
”
“On a floating bridge bound
with flaxen ropes
...
”
“The raging leader of populous
Asia”
“We prostrate ourselves” (to
Atossa)
The Queen’s dreams
“Who leads them and is sole
commander of the army?”
“M-Xerxes himself lives and
looks upon the light
...
”
Queen Atossa is ‘mother’ of
Persia
...

“Every (Persian) ship was being
rowed in disorderly flight”
Xerxes’ infantry was “rushing
away in disorderly flight”
See the kommos, Xerxes spends
the entire time crying about his
lost men, and how it’s all his
fault- yet is still an ‘unexpected
disaster in his eyes

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