The Greek art of the drama has its roots in religious festivals for the gods, chiefly Dionysus, the god of wine.
Dramatic competitions have become part of the City Dionysia in the spring.
The festival begins with an opening procession, continues with a competition of boys singing dithyrambs, and culminates in a pair of dramatic competitions.
The first competition is for the tragedians, and consists of three playwrights each presenting three tragic plays followed by a shorter comedic satyr play.
A second competition of five comedic playwrights follows, and the winners of both competitions are chosen by a panel of judges.
Aeschylus, after the death of Phrynichus, one of his chief rivals, was by 473 BCE the yearly favorite in the Dionysia, winning first prize in nearly every competition.
Often recognized as the father or the founder of tragedy, and the earliest of the three Greek tragedians whose plays survive, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, Aeschylus expands the number of characters in plays to allow for conflict among them; previously, characters had interacted only with the chorus.
No more than seven of the estimated seventy plays written by Aeschylus have survived into modern times.
Many of his works are influenced by the Persian invasion of Greece, a contemporary event, he having participated in the Greek victory at Marathon.
He dramatizes Athens's naval victory over Persia at Salamis in The Persians, his earliest preserved play, which wins first prize at the Dionysia.
Written in 472, The Persians, the oldest surviving Classical Greek play, remains a quintessential primary source of information about this period in Greek history.
Displaying surprising sympathy for the defeated invaders, Aeschylus shows Atossa, the Persian queen, suffering the blow of her son's defeat; the ambitious Xerxes, who begins as a proud conqueror, degenerates into a vengeful destroyer of his subjects' lives and property.
