Dionysian Mysteries
It provided some liberation for those marginalized by Greek society, women and foreigners. In their final phase the Mysteries shifted their emphasis from a chthonic, underworld orientation to a transcendental, mystical one and its spread was associated with the dissemination of wine, a sacrament or entheogen with which it appears always to have been closely associated. However, all stages of this developmental spectrum appear to have continued in parallel throughout the eastern Mediterranean until late in Greek history and forcible Christianization. After the deitys name was discovered on Mycenean Linear B tablets, this theory was abandoned, the absence of an early Olympian Dionysus is today explained by patterns of social exclusion and the cults marginality, rather than chronology. Whether the cult originated on Minoan Crete or Africa – or in Thrace or Asia, as a proto-Sabazius – is unanswerable, due to lack of evidence. The original rite of Dionysus is associated with a cult, concerned with the grapevines cultivation and an understanding of its life cycle.
Most importantly, the intoxicating and disinhibiting effects of wine were regarded as due to possession by the gods spirit, wine was poured on the earth and its growing vine, completing the cycle. The cult was not solely concerned with the vine itself, wine includes other ingredients adding to its quality and medicinal properties. Scholars have suggested that, given the low content of early wine. Honey and beeswax were often added to wine, introducing an even older drink, károly Kerényi postulated that this wine lore superseded earlier Neolithic mead lore involving bee swarms associated by the Greeks with Dionysus. Mead and beer were incorporated into the domain of Dionysus, perhaps through his identification with the Thracian corn deity Sabazius, other plants believed to be viniculturally significant were included in wine lore such as ivy, the fig and the pine. The bull and goat were part of the cult, eventually seen as manifestations of Dionysus, some of these associations had been linked with fertility deities and became part of his new role.
The latter provided wine to ancient Egypt wine from about 2500 BC, in any case Minoan Crete was the next link in the chain, importing wine from the Egyptians and Phoenicians and exporting it to its colonies. The Mysteries probably took shape in Minoan Crete from about 3000 to 1000 BC, since the name Dionysus exists nowhere other than Crete and Greece. The rites were based on a seasonal death-rebirth theme and spirit possession, spirit possession involved liberation from civilizations rules and constraints. It celebrated that which was outside civilized society and a return to primordial nature—which would assume mystical overtones and it involved escape from the socialized personality and ego into an ecstatic, deified state or the primal herd. In this sense Dionysus was the beast-god within, or the mind of modern psychology. All were equal in a cult that inverted their roles, similar to the Roman Saturnalia, although the Greek Dionysian rites were associated with women, the cult officers titles were of both genders—belying the claim that the cult was solely for women
Athens
Athens is the capital and largest city of Greece. In modern times, Athens is a cosmopolitan metropolis and central to economic, industrial, maritime. In 2015, Athens was ranked the worlds 29th richest city by purchasing power, Athens is recognised as a global city because of its location and its importance in shipping, commerce, entertainment, international trade, culture and tourism. It is one of the biggest economic centres in southeastern Europe, with a financial sector. The municipality of Athens had a population of 664,046 within its limits. The urban area of Athens extends beyond its administrative city limits. According to Eurostat in 2011, the Functional urban areas of Athens was the 9th most populous FUA in the European Union, Athens is the southernmost capital on the European mainland. The city retains Roman and Byzantine monuments, as well as a number of Ottoman monuments. Athens is home to two UNESCO World Heritage Sites, the Acropolis of Athens and the medieval Daphni Monastery, Athens was the host city of the first modern-day Olympic Games in 1896, and 108 years it welcomed home the 2004 Summer Olympics.
In Ancient Greek, the name of the city was Ἀθῆναι a plural, in earlier Greek, such as Homeric Greek, the name had been current in the singular form though, as Ἀθήνη. It was possibly rendered in the on, like those of Θῆβαι and Μυκῆναι. During the medieval period the name of the city was rendered once again in the singular as Ἀθήνα, an etiological myth explaining how Athens has acquired its name was well known among ancient Athenians and even became the theme of the sculpture on the West pediment of the Parthenon. The goddess of wisdom and the god of the seas, Poseidon had many disagreements, in an attempt to compel the people, Poseidon created a salt water spring by striking the ground with his trident, symbolizing naval power. However, when Athena created the tree, symbolizing peace and prosperity. Different etymologies, now rejected, were proposed during the 19th century. Christian Lobeck proposed as the root of the name the word ἄθος or ἄνθος meaning flower, ludwig von Döderlein proposed the stem of the verb θάω, stem θη- to denote Athens as having fertile soil.
In classical literature, the city was referred to as the City of the Violet Crown, first documented in Pindars ἰοστέφανοι Ἀθᾶναι. In medieval texts, variant names include Setines and Astines, today the caption η πρωτεύουσα, the capital, has become somewhat common
Greece
Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, historically known as Hellas, is a country in southeastern Europe, with a population of approximately 11 million as of 2015. Athens is the capital and largest city, followed by Thessaloniki. Greece is strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, situated on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, the Republic of Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to the northeast. Greece consists of nine regions, Central Greece, the Peloponnese, Epirus, the Aegean Islands, Crete. The Aegean Sea lies to the east of the mainland, the Ionian Sea to the west, the Cretan Sea and the Mediterranean Sea to the south. Greece has the longest coastline on the Mediterranean Basin and the 11th longest coastline in the world at 13,676 km in length, featuring a vast number of islands, eighty percent of Greece is mountainous, with Mount Olympus being the highest peak at 2,918 metres. From the eighth century BC, the Greeks were organised into various independent city-states, known as polis, which spanned the entire Mediterranean region and the Black Sea.
Greece was annexed by Rome in the second century BC, becoming a part of the Roman Empire and its successor. The Greek Orthodox Church shaped modern Greek identity and transmitted Greek traditions to the wider Orthodox World, falling under Ottoman dominion in the mid-15th century, the modern nation state of Greece emerged in 1830 following a war of independence. Greeces rich historical legacy is reflected by its 18 UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among the most in Europe, Greece is a democratic and developed country with an advanced high-income economy, a high quality of life, and a very high standard of living. A founding member of the United Nations, Greece was the member to join the European Communities and has been part of the Eurozone since 2001. Greeces unique cultural heritage, large industry, prominent shipping sector. It is the largest economy in the Balkans, where it is an important regional investor, the names for the nation of Greece and the Greek people differ from the names used in other languages and cultures.
The earliest evidence of the presence of human ancestors in the southern Balkans, dated to 270,000 BC, is to be found in the Petralona cave, all three stages of the stone age are represented in Greece, for example in the Franchthi Cave. Neolithic settlements in Greece, dating from the 7th millennium BC, are the oldest in Europe by several centuries and these civilizations possessed writing, the Minoans writing in an undeciphered script known as Linear A, and the Mycenaeans in Linear B, an early form of Greek. The Mycenaeans gradually absorbed the Minoans, but collapsed violently around 1200 BC and this ushered in a period known as the Greek Dark Ages, from which written records are absent. The end of the Dark Ages is traditionally dated to 776 BC, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the foundational texts of Western literature, are believed to have been composed by Homer in the 7th or 8th centuries BC. With the end of the Dark Ages, there emerged various kingdoms and city-states across the Greek peninsula, in 508 BC, Cleisthenes instituted the worlds first democratic system of government in Athens
Rural area
In general, a rural area or countryside is a geographic area that is located outside towns and cities. Whatever is not urban is considered rural, typical rural areas have a low population density and small settlements. Agricultural areas are rural, though so are others such as forests. Different countries have varying definitions of rural for statistical and administrative purposes, in Canada, the census division has been used to represent regions and census consolidated sub-divisions have been used to represent communities. Intermediate regions have 15 to 49 percent of their living in a rural community. Predominantly urban regions have less than 15 percent of their living in a rural community. Predominantly rural regions are classified as rural metro-adjacent, rural non-metro-adjacent and rural northern, following Ehrensaft, as well, rural northern regions encompass all of the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Statistics Canada defines rural for their population counts and this definition has changed over time.
Typically, it has referred to the population living outside settlements of 1,000 or less inhabitants, the current definition states that census rural is the population outside settlements with fewer than 1,000 inhabitants and a population density below 400 people per square kilometre. 84% of the United States inhabitants live in suburban and urban areas, Rural areas occupy the remaining 90 percent. The U. S. Census Bureau, the USDAs Economic Research Service, an urbanized area consists of a central surrounding areas whose population is greater than 50,000. USDA The USDAs Office of Rural Development may define rural by various population thresholds, for example, a metropolitan county is one that contains an urbanized area, or one that has a twenty-five percent commuter rate to an urbanized area regardless of population. In 2014, the USDA updated their rural / non-rural area definitions based on the 2010 Census counts, Rural health definitions can be different for establishing under-served areas or health care accessibility in rural areas of the United States.
This became the Goldsmith Modification definition of rural, health care delivery in rural areas of the United States can be challenging. From 2005-2011, the rate of potentially preventable hospitalizations for acute conditions was highest in rural areas, in Brazil, theres different notions of rural area and countryside. Rural areas are any place outside an urban development and its carried by informal usage. Otherwise, countryside are officially defined as all municipalities outside the capitals metropolitan region. Some states as Mato Grosso do Sul doesnt have any metropolitan region, thus all of the state, Rio de Janeiro is singular in Brazil and its de facto a metropolitan state, as circa 70% of its population are located in Greater Rio
Acropolis
An acropolis is a settlement, especially a citadel, built upon an area of elevated ground—frequently a hill with precipitous sides, chosen for purposes of defense. An example in Ireland is the Rock of Cashel, Acropolis is the term used by archaeologists and historians for the urban Castro culture settlements located in Northwestern Iberian hilltops. The most famous example is the Acropolis of Athens, which, by reason of its historical associations, although originating in the mainland of Greece, use of the acropolis model quickly spread to Greek colonies such as the Dorian Lato on Crete during the Archaic Period. Because of its classical Hellenistic style, the ruins of Mission San Juan Capistranos Great Stone Church in California, other parts of the world developed other names for the high citadel or alcázar, which often reinforced a naturally strong site. In Central Italy, many small rural communes still cluster at the base of a fortified habitation known as La Rocca of the commune. The term acropolis is used to describe the complex of overlapping structures, such as plazas and pyramids, in many Maya cities, including Tikal
Piraeus
Piraeus is a port city in the region of Attica, Greece. Piraeus is located within the Athens urban area,12 kilometres southwest from its city center, the municipality of Piraeus and several other suburban municipalities within the regional unit of Piraeus form the greater Piraeus area, with a total population of 448,997. Piraeus has a recorded history, dating to ancient Greece. During the Golden Age of Athens the Long Walls were constructed to connect Athens with Piraeus, the port of Piraeus is the chief port in Greece, the largest passenger port in Europe and the second largest in the world, servicing about 20 million passengers annually. With a throughput of 1.4 million TEUs, Piraeus is placed among the top ten ports in container traffic in Europe, the city hosted events in both the 1896 and 2004 Summer Olympics held in Athens. The University of Piraeus is one of the largest universities in Greece, which roughly means the place over the passage, has been inhabited since the 26th century BC.
Consequently, it was called the Halipedon, meaning the salt field, through the centuries, the area was increasingly silted and flooding ceased, and thus by early classical times the land passage was made safe. In the late 6th century BC, the area caught attention due to its advantages, in 511 BC, the hill of Munichia was fortified by Hippias and four years Piraeus became a deme of Attica by Cleisthenes. The Athenian fleet played a role in the battle of Salamis against the Persians in 480 BC. From on Piraeus was permanently used as the navy base, the citys fortification was farther reinforced by the construction of the Long Walls under Cimon and Pericles, with which Piraeus was connected to Athens. Meanwhile, Piraeus was rebuilt to the grid plan of architect Hippodamus of Miletus, known as the Hippodamian plan. As a result, Piraeus flourished and became a port of high security and great commercial activity, during the Peloponnesian War, Piraeus suffered its first setback. In the second year of the war, the first cases of the Athens plague were recorded in Piraeus, in 404 BC, the Spartan fleet under Lysander blockaded Piraeus and subsequently Athens surrendered to the Spartans, putting an end to the Delian League and the war itself.
As a result, the tattered and unfortified port city was not able to compete with prosperous Rhodes, the destruction was completed in 395 AD by the Goths under Alaric I. Piraeus was led to a period of decline which lasted for fifteen centuries. During the Byzantine period the harbour of Piraeus was occasionally used for the Byzantine fleet and it was called Porto Drako by Greeks, drako meaning not just dragon, but any monster. When Piraeus was taken by the Ottoman Empire in 1456, it known as Aslan Liman. The Piraeus Lion itself was looted in 1687 by Francesco Morosini during his expedition against Athens and was carried to the Venetian Arsenal, a copy of the lion statue is on display at the Archaeological Museum of Piraeus
Aristophanes
Aristophanes, son of Philippus, of the deme Kydathenaion, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete and these, together with fragments of some of his other plays, provide the only real examples of a genre of comic drama known as Old Comedy, and are used to define it. Also known as the Father of Comedy and the Prince of Ancient Comedy and his second play, The Babylonians, was denounced by the demagogue Cleon as a slander against the Athenian polis. In my opinion, he says through the Chorus in that play, less is known about Aristophanes than about his plays. In fact, his plays are the source of information about him. It was conventional in Old Comedy for the Chorus to speak on behalf of the author during a called the parabasis. However, these facts relate almost entirely to his career as a dramatist, Aristophanes claimed to be writing for a clever and discerning audience, yet he declared that other times would judge the audience according to its reception of his plays.
He sometimes boasts of his originality as a dramatist yet his plays consistently espouse opposition to new influences in Athenian society. He caricatured leading figures in the arts, in politics, such caricatures seem to imply that Aristophanes was an old-fashioned conservative, yet that view of him leads to contradictions. It has been argued that Aristophanes produced plays mainly to entertain the audience, an elaborate series of lotteries, designed to prevent prejudice and corruption, reduced the voting judges at the City Dionysia to just five in number. These judges probably reflected the mood of the audiences yet there is uncertainty about the composition of those audiences. The theatres were certainly huge, with seating for at least 10000 at the Theatre of Dionysus, the conservative views expressed in the plays might therefore reflect the attitudes of the dominant group in an unrepresentative audience. The production process might have influenced the views expressed in the plays, throughout most of Aristophanes career, the Chorus was essential to a plays success and it was recruited and funded by a choregus, a wealthy citizen appointed to the task by one of the archons.
Thus the political conservatism of the plays may reflect the views of the wealthiest section of Athenian society, when Aristophanes first play The Banqueters was produced, Athens was an ambitious, imperial power and the Peloponnesian War was only in its fourth year. His plays often express pride in the achievement of the older generation yet they are not jingoistic, the plays are particularly scathing in criticism of war profiteers, among whom populists such as Cleon figure prominently. However it is whether he led or merely responded to changes in audience expectations. Aristophanes won second prize at the City Dionysia in 427 BC with his first play The Banqueters and he won first prize there with his next play, The Babylonians. Some influential citizens, notably Cleon, reviled the play as slander against the polis, Cleon seems to have had no real power to limit or control Aristophanes, the caricatures of him continued up to and even beyond his death
Peloponnesian War
The Peloponnesian War was an ancient Greek war fought by Athens and its empire against the Peloponnesian League led by Sparta. Historians have traditionally divided the war into three phases and this period of the war was concluded in 421 BC, with the signing of the Peace of Nicias. That treaty, was undermined by renewed fighting in the Peloponnese. In 415 BC, Athens dispatched an expeditionary force to attack Syracuse in Sicily. This ushered in the phase of the war, generally referred to either as the Decelean War. The destruction of Athens fleet at Aegospotami effectively ended the war and Thebes demanded that Athens should be destroyed and all its citizens should be enslaved, but Sparta refused. The Peloponnesian War reshaped the ancient Greek world, the economic costs of the war were felt all across Greece, poverty became widespread in the Peloponnese, while Athens found itself completely devastated, and never regained its pre-war prosperity. Greek warfare, originally a limited and formalized form of conflict, was transformed into a struggle between city-states, complete with atrocities on a large scale.
Indeed, the fifty years of Greek history that preceded the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War had been marked by the development of Athens as a major power in the Mediterranean world. The city proceeded to conquer all of Greece except for Sparta and its allies, by the middle of the century, the Persians had been driven from the Aegean and forced to cede control of a vast range of territories to Athens. This tribute was used to support a fleet and, after the middle of the century, to fund massive public works programs in Athens. According to Thucydides, although the Spartans took no action at this time, conflict between the states flared up again in 465 BC, when a helot revolt broke out in Sparta. The Spartans summoned forces from all of their allies, including Athens, Athens sent out a sizable contingent, but upon its arrival, this force was dismissed by the Spartans, while those of all the other allies were permitted to remain. According to Thucydides, the Spartans acted in this way out of fear that the Athenians would switch sides and support the helots, the offended Athenians repudiated their alliance with Sparta.
When the rebellious helots were finally forced to surrender and permitted to evacuate the country, a fifteen-year conflict, commonly known as the First Peloponnesian War, ensued, in which Athens fought intermittently against Sparta, Aegina, and a number of other states. The war was ended by the Thirty Years Peace, signed in the winter of 446/5 BC. The Thirty Years Peace was first tested in 440 BC, when Athens powerful ally Samos rebelled from its alliance with Athens, the rebels quickly secured the support of a Persian satrap, and Athens found itself facing the prospect of revolts throughout the empire. The Spartans, whose intervention would have been the trigger for a war to determine the fate of the empire
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the family Bovidae and is related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over 300 distinct breeds of goat, Goats are one of the oldest domesticated species, and have been used for their milk, meat and skins over much of the world. In 2011, there were more than 924 million live goats around the globe, according to the UN Food, female goats are referred to as does or nannies, intact males are called bucks or billies, and juveniles of both sexes are called kids. Goat meat from animals is called kid or cabrito, while meat from older animals is known simply as goat or sometimes called chevon. To refer to the male, Old English used bucca until ousted by hegote, hegoote in the late 12th century, nanny goat originated in the 18th century and billy goat in the 19th. Goats are among the earliest animals domesticated by humans, the most recent genetic analysis confirms the archaeological evidence that the wild Bezoar ibex of the Zagros Mountains is the likely original ancestor of probably all domestic goats today.
The earliest remnants of domesticated goats dating 10,000 years before present are found in Ganj Dareh in Iran. Goat remains have been found at sites in Jericho, Choga Mami Djeitun and Çayönü. Studies of DNA evidence suggests 10,000 years BP as the domestication date, goat hide has been used for water and wine bottles in both traveling and transporting wine for sale. It has used to produce parchment. Goats are considered small livestock animals, compared to animals such as cattle and horses, but larger than microlivestock such as poultry, cavies. Each recognized breed of goats has specific weight ranges, which vary from over 140 kg for bucks of larger breeds such as the Boer, within each breed, different strains or bloodlines may have different recognized sizes. At the bottom of the range are miniature breeds such as the African Pygmy. Most goats naturally have two horns, of various shapes and sizes depending on the breed, Goats have horns unless they are polled or the horns have been removed, typically soon after birth.
There have been incidents of polycerate goats, although this is a genetic rarity thought to be inherited, the horns are most typically removed in commercial dairy goat herds, to reduce the injuries to humans and other goats. Unlike cattle, goats have not been bred to be reliably polled, as the genes determining sex. Breeding together two genetically polled goats results in a number of intersex individuals among the offspring, which are typically sterile
Eleusis
Eleusis is a town and municipality in West Attica, Greece. It is situated about 18 kilometres northwest from the centre of Athens and it is located in the Thriasian Plain, at the northernmost end of the Saronic Gulf. North of Eleusis are Mandra and Magoula, while Aspropyrgos is to the northeast, Eleusis is the seat of administration of West Attica regional unit. It is the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries and the birthplace of Aeschylus, Eleusis is a major industrial centre, with the largest oil refinery in Greece as well as the home of the Aeschylia Festival, the longest-lived arts event in Attica Region. On 11 November 2016 Eleusis was named the European Capital of Culture for 2021.589 km2, from as early as 600 BC up to the 4th century AD, Eleusis was the site of the Eleusinian Mysteries, or the Mysteries of Demeter and Kore. These Mysteries revolved around a belief that there was a hope for life after death for those who were initiated, such a belief was cultivated from the introduction ceremony in which the hopeful initiates were shown a number of things including the seed of life in a stalk of grain.
The central myth of the Mysteries was Demeters quest for her lost daughter who had been abducted by Hades, Demeter raised Demophoon, anointing him with nectar and ambrosia, until Metaneira found out and insulted her. Demeter arose insulted, and casting off her disguise, and, in all her glory, the city has become a suburb of Athens, to which it is linked by the Motorway 6 and Greek National Road 8. Eleusis is nowadays a major area, and the place where the majority of crude oil in Greece is imported and refined. The largest refinery is located on the west side of town, there is a military airport a few kilometers east of Eleusis. Eleusis Airfield played a role in the final British evacuation during the 1941 Battle of Greece. Eleusis is home to the football club Panelefsiniakos F. C. the Hellenic National Meteorological Service weather station of Eleusis has an average maximum July temperature of 33. 0°C and has recorded temperatures over 45. 0°C nine times between 1973–2007). The Eleusis phenomenon is not yet completely understood however factors of geomorphology, warm water masses in the summer, according to the Köppen Climate Classification system, Eleusis has a hot-summer Mediterranean climate, abbreviated Csa on climate maps.
Eleusis hosts the multi-sport club Panelefsiniakos with successful sections in football and basketball, other historical club of Eleusis is Iraklis Eleusis, founded in 1928
Euripides
Euripides was a tragedian of classical Athens. He is one of the few plays have survived, with the others being Aeschylus, Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed 95 plays to him but according to the Suda it was 92 at most, of these,18 or 19 have survived more or less complete and there are fragments, some substantial, of most of the other plays. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that writers adapted to comedy, yet he became the most tragic of poets, focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown. He was unique among the writers of ancient Athens for the sympathy he demonstrated towards all victims of society and his contemporaries associated him with Socrates as a leader of a decadent intellectualism, both of them being frequently lampooned by comic poets such as Aristophanes. Whereas Socrates was eventually put on trial and executed as an influence, Euripides chose a voluntary exile in old age. Recent scholarship casts doubt on ancient biographies of Euripides, for example, it is possible that he never visited Macedonia at all, or, if he did, he might have been drawn there by King Archelaus with incentives that were offered to other artists.
Upon the receipt of a saying that his son was fated to win crowns of victory. In fact the boy was destined for a career on the stage and he served for a short time as both dancer and torch-bearer at the rites of Apollo Zosterius. His education was not confined to athletics, he studied painting and philosophy under the masters Prodicus. He had two marriages and both his wives—Melite and Choerine —were unfaithful. He became a recluse, making a home for himself in a cave on Salamis, there he built an impressive library and pursued daily communion with the sea and sky. Eventually he retired to the court of King Archelaus in Macedonia. However, as mentioned in the introduction, biographical details such as these should be regarded with scepticism and this biography is divided into three sections corresponding to the three kinds of sources. The apocryphal account that he composed his works in a cave on Salamis island was a late tradition, much of his life and his whole career coincided with the struggle between Athens and Sparta for hegemony in Greece but he didnt live to see the final defeat of his city.
In an account by Plutarch, the failure of the Sicilian expedition led Athenians to trade renditions of Euripides lyrics to their enemies in return for food. Tragic poets were often mocked by comic poets during the dramatic festivals Dionysia and Lenaia, Aristophanes scripted him as a character in at least three plays, The Acharnians, Thesmophoriazusae and The Frogs. Yet Aristophanes borrowed rather than just satirized some of the methods, he was once ridiculed by a colleague, Cratinus, as a hair-splitting master of niceties
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was an ancient Greek tragedian. He is often described as the father of tragedy, academics knowledge of the genre begins with his work, and understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays. According to Aristotle, he expanded the number of characters in theater allowing conflict among them, fragments of some other plays have survived in quotes and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyrus, often giving us surprising insights into his work. He was probably the first dramatist to present plays as a trilogy, at least one of his plays was influenced by the Persians second invasion of Greece. This work, The Persians, is the surviving classical Greek tragedy concerned with contemporary events. Despite this, Aeschylus work – particularly the Oresteia – is generally acclaimed by modern critics and scholars. As soon as he woke from the dream, the young Aeschylus began to write a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC and he won his first victory at the City Dionysia in 484 BC.
In 510 BC, when Aeschylus was 15 years old, Cleomenes I expelled the sons of Peisistratus from Athens, Cleisthenes reforms included a system of registration that emphasized the importance of the deme over family tradition. In the last decade of the 6th century and his family were living in the deme of Eleusis, the Persian Wars played a large role in the playwrights life and career. In 490 BC, Aeschylus and his brother Cynegeirus fought to defend Athens against the army of Darius I of Persia at the Battle of Marathon. The Athenians emerged triumphant, a victory celebrated across the city-states of Greece, however, died in the battle, receiving a mortal wound while trying to prevent a Persian ship retreating from the shore, for which his countrymen extolled him as a hero. In 480, Aeschylus was called into service again, this time against Xerxes Is invading forces at the Battle of Salamis. Ion of Chios was a witness for Aeschyluss war record and his contribution in Salamis, Salamis holds a prominent place in The Persians, his oldest surviving play, which was performed in 472 BC and won first prize at the Dionysia.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who were initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, initiates gained secret knowledge through these rites, likely concerning the afterlife. Firm details of specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle, Aeschylus was accused of revealing some of the secrets on stage. Other sources claim that a mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot. Heracleides of Pontus asserts that the tried to stone Aeschylus
