Persians

Aeschylus’ Persians is not a famous play, with no great, memorable archetypes, and is unusual in having subject matter concerning recent events rather than mythology, but it’s one of the best Greek plays I’ve yet read. Around two and a half thousand years ago (astonishing to think of texts surviving so very long), Aeschylus fought in a battle against the Persians at Salamis (no, AT Salamis, not with salamis!), where according to popular legend, young Sophocles was in the chorus for the victory song, and Euripides was being born.

The play concerns not the victorious Greeks but the defeated Persians. A messenger brings news of King Xerxes’ crushing defeat, his mother weeps and summons the spirit of her husband, who warns against going against Greece, for it is protected by gods, and also cautions mortals not to be vain or proud. Xerxes appears in tatters, and with the chorus, weeps for his dead countrymen.

For a soldier who fought against these people, writing for an audience who must have lost family and friends in the battle, the sympathy and respect for the enemy is astonishing. In an age where we are so used to propaganda and the dehumanising of enemies, such respect and empathy for enemies seems remarkably noble and admirable.

Wilfred Owen’s sympathy for his foe in ‘Strange Meeting’ is powerful for it seeming to be a great exception. But for such an attitude to be the norm, and for a popular play to be written expressing the sadness of the enemy’s situation, with no possible way that the writing could be interpreted as mocking, or designed to make the audience jeer at the defeated mourners, really appeals to me. There is much to learn from ancient attitudes.