The Persians

Athens, now commonly regarded as the birthplace of Western democracy, was the host of the Dionysia festival where The Persians won first prize. It’s not surprising then, that Aeschylus’ play questions the governing structure of the Persian Empire—Athens prided itself on the fact that its citizens were free from the rule of a king. Aeschylus really plays up the absolute power of monarchs: The chorus describes Darius as “one who was a god to the / Persians” (Lines 157-58), and they declare that Xerxes may be “a god too, unless our / old protecting power has now changed sides against our army” (Lines 158-59). Atossa, before learning of her son’s defeat, notes that he is not accountable to the people; his defeat would be bad for Persia, but he would remain in power. The ancient world had other unaccountable, deified leaders, such as the Egyptian pharaohs; however, this kind of power dynamic ran contrary to the ethos of Aeschylus’s society. Even Pericles, the powerful Athenian leader who was the chief sponsor of the Dionysia festival during which The Persians was performed, was constrained by democratic limits. While the wars described in The Persians were fought by a coalition of Greek city-states led by Athens and Sparta (a famously totalitarian society), Aeschylus’s