The Shelves · Tragedy

Tragedies (seven survive)

Known · Probablein Alexandria?Conjecturedvery likely class

◇ Doubted: the attribution is uncertain. Prometheus Bound's authorship is disputed.

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I · The entry, in his form

In the table of Tragedy

Conjecturedvery likely class

Aeschylus

c. 525–456 BCE. The first of the three Athenian tragedians. Athens kept an official copy of his plays from the 330s BCE, and Galen tells that Ptolemy III borrowed it and kept it.

Tragedies

Opening words not preserved.

Length: not counted

◇ Doubted: the attribution is uncertain. Prometheus Bound's authorship is disputed.

Above, his entry form, filled from what we know. Below, ours.

II · Does it survive? Where to read it

Survives in large part

7 of roughly 70-90 plays survive; others in papyrus fragments (Myrmidons, Niobe, the satyr-play Net-Fishers).

Was it in Alexandria?

Known · Probable

Acquired for the Library.

In the cupboard: an ancient source reports it entering the collection or the Pinakes.

Read it today

III · In the show

The show has not yet spoken of this work.

IV · Sources and the living entry

Ancient references
  • Prometheus Bound 436-506 (the gifts of Prometheus)
Modern scholarship
  • A. H. Sommerstein, Aeschylus III: Fragments (Loeb Classical Library 505; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).

Entry checked 31 Oct 2026 · no corrections · Suggest a correction ›

TRAGEDIES

Beside it in the cupboard