SOURCE: Podlecki, Anthony J. “Persians.” In The Political Background of Aeschylean Tragedy, pp. 8-26. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1966.

In the following essay, Podlecki explains the historical and political significance of the actions taken by the general and politician Themistocles as well as what influence these had in shaping the Persians.

Aeschylus' Persians is unique in the history of Greek drama, for it is the only surviving example of a genre which can never have been large, historical tragedy.¹ Its tragic hero was a living person whom disaster had overtaken not in the misty past of saga and myth, but eight years before the play was produced; the agents of his downfall were many of the same men who sat in the theater in 472. In choosing this contemporary subject, Aeschylus ran a risk: he had to engage the audience in the tragic fate of Xerxes, and...