What was Aeschylus’s view of the Trojan war? Aeschylus was born in Eleusis, Greece, in the late sixteenth century BC. He died in Gela, Italy, in the mid fifth century BC. He was known in ancient Greek history as “the father of tragedy”. He has earned this title because he wrote many Greek tragic plays. It was said that he wrote many plays, however, not very many of the plays still survive to this day. A very small amount. Probably his most famous tragedy ever was a play called “Agamemnon”. In this play he includes some of his account on the Trojan War. He only provides brief accounts of his view of this devastating and famous war, however. This is a dramatic tragedy and one who wants to read it and understand it needs to do more than just read it.

The Trojan war was a very famous war. However, nobody knows if the Trojan War even existed.  However, some people spend their entire life searching for Troy, trying to prove that Troy really existed, and then trying to figure out if the Trojan war really happened. There is very little proof, however, some people believe that they are extremely close to uncovering the truth about Troy and the Trojan War. The war was said to have lasted ten years. And in the end of the war, Troy was eventually destroyed forever. It was said that the Greeks were the ones fighting the Trojans. They too, suffered a great loss of Greek warriors and men.

In the play, the main character was Agamemnon. The play showed him offering up a human sacrifice, his own daughter, Iphigenia. This sacrifice was to settle issues that are war related. In this tragedy, the play itself was not wicked, but the attitude of Agamemnon was wicked. It was wicked of him to kill his daughter and show no mercy to her. He did not even struggle to command the act of killing her. He was very wicked. Aeschylus, I think, was trying to say how the Trojan war effected the minds of people. If that is what he was trying to say, then they were wicked people during the war. This was just one of the wicked things that took place during the war. Imagine what other things were going on during the war! I think that what Aeschylus was trying to say, is that the Trojan War poisoned and destroyed the minds of people.

There was not even justice during the war! If someone killed a family member of yours, than you and your family had the right to get revenge by killing the person who killed your family member. Bloodshed was justified by even more bloodshed. In the play, men had no morals, and without morals, mankind are no more than animals. The ability to apply reason. That is the thing that sets man aside from animals. Take away reason from man, and they become animals, having no mind of their own. Do not become like those men (yes, I am talking to you). Those are some of the reasons of Aeschylus’ view of the Trojan war.