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This volume brings together a group of interdisciplinary experts who demonstrate that Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes is a text of continuing relevance and value for exploring ancient, contemporary and comparative issues of war and its attendant trauma. The volume features contributions from an international cast of experts, as well as a conversation with a retired U.S. Army Lt. Col., giving her perspectives on the blending of reality and fiction in Aeschylus' war tragedies and on the potential of Greek tragedy to speak to contemporary veterans. This book is a fascinating resource for anyone interested in Aeschylus, Greek tragedy and its reception, and war literature.
List of contents
List of figures
Acknowledgements
1 Aeschylus and War: Comparative Perspectives on Seven Against Thebes
ISABELLE TORRANCE
PART I
Modern Perspectives
2 Aeschylus and War: A Conversation with Lieutenant Colonel Kristen Janowsky
Moderated by Olivier Morel and Isabelle Torrance; prepared for publication by Isabelle Torrance.
3 Aeschylus, Gangland Naples, and the Siege of Sarajevo: Mario Martone's Teatro di Guerra
ISABELLE TORRANCE
4 Thebes as High Collateral Damage Target: Moral Accountability for Killing in Seven Against Thebes
PETER MEINECK
PART II
Ancient Perspectives
5 Greek Armies against Towns: Siege Warfare and the Seven Against Thebes
FERNANDO ECHEVERRÍA
6 Eteocles and Thebes in Aeschylus
LOWELL EDMUNDS
7 The Music of War in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes
MARK GRIFFITH
8 Fathers and Sons in War: Seven Against Thebes, Pythian 8, and the Polemics of Genre
MARGARET FOSTER
PART III
The Destruction of Thebes, Ancient and Modern
9 Aeschylus and the Destruction of Thebes: What Did Apollo's Oracle Mean?
ALAN SOMMERSTEIN
10 The Destruction of Thebes in Brecht's Antigone (1948)
DOUGLAS CAIRNS
Bibliography
Contributors
Summary
This volume brings together a group of interdisciplinary experts who demonstrate that Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes is a text of continuing relevance and value for exploring ancient, contemporary and comparative issues of war and its attendant trauma. The volume features contributions from an international cast of experts, as well as a
Report
Civil war, fratricide, a city under siege and women in mortal terror - these are the themes of Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, a tragedy that Aeschylus himself (or at least his persona in Aristophanes' comedy, Frogs) boasted was "full of Ares" or martial spirit. This volume takes account of recent research on ancient warfare and of the intimate connection between war and Greek tragedy, which continues to speak to veterans' experiences today. The chapters bring important new perspectives to this undeservedly neglected masterpiece.
- David Konstan, Professor of Classics, New York University, USA
Aeschylus and War is a salutary reminder that Seven against Thebes must be understood in the martial context from which it draws its inspiration. Moreover, it is to be hoped that this useful and thought-provoking collection of papers will help to rekindle critical interest in a great and difficult work, which has for too long been condemned to brood sublimely in relative neglect.
- N. J. Sewell-Rutter, Oxford, UK, in the Bryn Mawr Classical Review
