The Middle Sea: A History of the Mediterranean by John Julius Norwich Read Free Book Online Page B

the construction of new ones, particularly on the Acropolis, where he was directly responsible for the Propylaea, the Odeon, the Erechtheum and the Parthenon itself. But he was also a war leader and an incorrigible imperialist–for it should never be assumed that the fifth century in Athens was a time of peace. On the contrary, there was almost constant fighting with Sparta, as also with many other Greek states who resented and resisted Athenian expansionist policies, the pressures steadily building up until in 431 BC they exploded in the Peloponnesian War. That war–one of the chief reasons for which was the determination of each side to control the trade routes linking Greece to the Adriatic–lasted for just over a quarter of the glorious fifth century. Anyone wanting to know the full story can read Thucydides; here it need only be said that it ended with a winter-long siege of Athens (405–04 BC ), during which the city was starved into surrender. So much, it might be thought, for the Golden Age. But the Golden Age was never about politics; it was about art and thought. In the field of literature–and in particular that of Greece’s greatest strength, the drama–the first great name was that of Aeschylus. Having been born in 525 BC , he had certainly fought at Marathon, and probably also at Salamis and Plataea. During his long life he wrote over eighty plays, of which seven have survived, including the only extant Greek trilogy, the
Oresteia
. Aeschylus was in many ways a pioneer. His tragedies were the first to explore human personality, and the first also to use a second actor, thus reducing to some degree the importance of the chorus. He made two prolonged visits to Sicily–at that time still an integral part of the Greek world–and it was there, in 456 BC , that he died–killed, according to a venerable tradition, by an eagle which mistook his bald head for a rock and dropped a tortoise on to it in order to crack the shell.
    Sophocles, some thirty years younger than Aeschylus, was still more prolific, with 123 plays to his credit; once again, seven tragedies have come down to us, including three which deal with the Oedipus legend. Apart from these–
Oedipus Rex
,
Antigone
and
Oedipus at Colonus
–his masterpiece is unquestionably
Electra
, which tells the story of the murder by Electra and her brother Orestes of their mother, Clytemnestra–wife of Agamemnon–and her lover, Aegisthus. Sophocles too was an innovator. Aristotle tells us that he added a third actor, and he also introduced the art of scene-painting. On top of all this, he somehow found the time to distinguish himself in Athenian public life. Treasurer of the Delian League, he served twice on the military council of ten generals; he was also a priest of Halon, another, lesser god of healing. He died in 406 BC , at the age of ninety. Some time before his death his sons took him to court on the grounds that he had grown senile and was no longer competent to manage his affairs. He replied by reciting from memory a long extract from his most recent play,
Oedipus at Colonus
–and won his case.
    Third and last of the great tragedians was Euripides. Born in 484 BC , he was twelve years younger than Sophocles and died a few months before him in 406 BC . (At the festival of Dionysus in that year, Sophocles dressed the chorus and actors in black in his memory.) In a later age, Euripides would have been hailed as a Renaissance man. As well as a playwright he was a fine painter and a skilled musician; his library was one of the best in Athens. He is believed to have written ninety-two plays, nineteen of which have survived. They include
Andromache, Hippolytus, Medea
and
The Trojan Women
: the same old myths used by his predecessors, but usually given an unexpected–often contemporary–twist.
    The only other dramatist of the day who deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as these three was a writer not of tragedies but of comedies, and highly