The Achilleis is a lost trilogy by the Athenian dramatist Aeschylus. The three plays that make up the Achilleis exist today only in fragments, but aspects of their overall content can be reconstructed with reasonable certainty. Like the Oresteia which forms "a narratively connected unit with a continuous plot," the trilogy had a unified focus, presumably treating the story of Achilles at Troy in a version comparable to the plot of the latter two-thirds of the Iliad. In the Myrmidons, Achilles' refusal to fight after his quarrel with Agamemnon led to the death of Patroclus. The title of the play traditionally placed second in the trilogy is the Nereids. The chorus was thus a group of Nereids, and the subject of the play involved Achilles and his Nereid mother Thetis, probably her mourning his imminent death and the acquisition of his new arms. In the Phrygians or Ransom of Hector, Priam and a chorus of Phrygians sought to retrieve Hector's body from the still wroth Achilles.
Priam (right) entering the hut of Achilles in his effort to ransom the body of Hector. The figure at left is probably one of Achilles' servant boys. (Attic red-figure kylix of the early fifth century BCE)
Achilles sulking, taken from a larger scene depicting Book 9 of the Iliad.
Aeschylus was an ancient Greek tragedian often described as the father of tragedy. Academic knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier Greek tragedy is largely based on inferences made from reading his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in the theatre and allowed conflict among them. Formerly, characters interacted only with the chorus.
Roman marble herma of Aeschylus dating to c. 30 BC, based on an earlier bronze Greek herma, dating to around 340-320 BC
Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore of Eleusis, Aeschylus' hometown
The death of Aeschylus illustrated in the 15th century Florentine Picture Chronicle by Maso Finiguerra
Modern picture of the Theatre of Dionysus in Athens, where many of Aeschylus's plays were performed