Athény: velmoc a válka v Aischylově dramatu

Abstract

Using the example of Aeschylus’ tragedies Persians, Agamemnon, and Eumenides, the author shows how a native Athenian and soldier worked with the theme of war. It analyses the degree to which military success and warfare are portrayed positively and ideologically in these plays or, by contrast, critically, which is manifested above all by the emphasis on the price that must be paid for war and warfare. The themes of all the dramas under discussion are seen as being topical in the present time. In the case of Persians, it is a study of the collapse of the imperial ambitions of the despotic Persian Empire in its clash with the free world of Greece and, above all, Athens. The tragedy of Agamemnon dramatises the effects of a long, albeit just, war on the hegemon of the coalition forces, the city-state of Argos, and its ruling family. Military success is accompanied by a long-lasting domestic crisis and the collapse of the ruling family. In Eumenides, this crisis of the divided society and ruling family subsides and then fades away.

Keywords

• war
• aeschylus
• athens
• hegemony
• empire