Meta Description: Join Dr. Jeff Winkle and Dr. David Noe in Ad Navseam Episode 130 as they explore Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound. Discover the origins of Greek tragedy, the unusual death of Aeschylus, the authorship debate, and resources to master the Latin language.
Introduction: Smocktober and the Swift Superhero
Welcome back, classical gourmands, to Episode 130 of the Ad Navseam Podcast! Broadcasting directly from the subterranean safety of Vomitorium Central, your hosts, Dr. David Noe and Dr. Jeff Winkle, are back at the microphones to tackle Greek tragedy.
Dave opens the episode by complaining about the unseasonably hot autumn weather, dubbing the oppressive climate “Smocktober”. Setting the meteorological grievances aside, the boys open the mailbag to give a special shout-out to Victoria Swift from the University of Wisconsin. After serving twelve years in the army, Victoria bravely pivoted to pursue a degree in classics. She noted that she was independently teaching herself ancient Greek and the Latin language before realizing her absolute passion for the classical world could not be contained to a mere side project. Dave points out that “Victoria Swift” sounds exactly like the secret alter ego of a comic book superhero, and the hosts wish her the absolute best in her rhetorical research.
Before moving to the main topic, Dave issues a necessary corrigendum (correction). In a previous episode, he erroneously stated that Agenor was the brother of Cadmus. Upon checking the historical record, Dave clarifies that Agenor, born in Memphis to Poseidon, was actually Cadmus’s father, not his sibling.
The Justice of Zeus and Greek Realism
The primary academic focus for Episode 130 is the ancient tragedy Prometheus Bound, traditionally attributed to the playwright Aeschylus. To set the stage, Dave reads a excerpt from the British scholar Hugh Lloyd-Jones’s book, The Justice of Zeus. Lloyd-Jones argues that the early Greeks achieved exceptional cultural milestones largely because their religion proved “they could bear much more reality than most human beings”.
Jeff completely agrees, noting that the ancient Greeks possessed a unique cultural willingness to actively push back against their own deities. While it is unimaginable to find ancient Assyrian or Babylonian texts aggressively besmirching their god Marduk, Greek tragedy routinely questions the inherent fairness of Zeus. Dave compares this willingness to confront divine injustice to the biblical Book of Job, showcasing the Greek capacity to hold deeply contradictory theological ideas without taking the lazy way out.
The Diana Ross of Antiquity
Before diving into the specific text, the hosts provide a foundational overview of Greek tragedy itself. Emerging in the middle of the sixth century BC, early Greek drama began as a dithyramb—a specific genre of sacred, sung choral poetry dedicated to Dionysus.
Around 534 BC, a performer named Thespis made a massive artistic innovation by physically stepping out of the chorus to sing an individual part, effectively creating the very first actor and giving birth to theatrical dialogue. Jeff humorously compares this historical moment to Diana Ross aggressively abandoning the Supremes to go solo, or Michael Jackson leaving the Jackson 5.
Following Thespis, Aeschylus innovated the medium by adding a second actor. A generation later, Sophocles added a third, solidifying the traditional, strictly conservative format of tragedy until Euripides eventually arrived to completely explode the established conventions with a distinctly avant-garde approach.
Aeschylus: Marathon and the Falling Turtle
Focusing on Aeschylus, Jeff reads a biographical sketch from H.J. Rose’s 1934 Handbook of Greek Literature. Born around 525 BC in Eleusis, Aeschylus was a remarkably brave citizen-soldier who fought against the Persians at the Battle of Marathon and later against Xerxes’s forces. In fact, his own tombstone proudly commemorates his military victory over the long-haired Persians at Marathon while saying absolutely nothing about his legendary career as a playwright.
Despite producing an estimated ninety plays during his lifetime, only seven of Aeschylus’s tragedies survive intact today. Jeff marvels at this devastating loss, wondering how modern audiences would appreciate a show like Seinfeld if they could only view seven random episodes out of the entire interconnected series.
Aeschylus died in Sicily around 456 BC in a notoriously bizarre manner. According to ancient comedic legend, an eagle flying overhead mistook the playwright’s shiny, bald head for a rock and intentionally dropped a turtle on it to crack the shell, killing Aeschylus instantly.
Prometheus Bound: The Pnyx and the Authorship Debate
For this deep dive, the hosts utilize an English translation by Deborah Roberts. In her introduction, Roberts addresses a persistent scholarly debate regarding whether Aeschylus actually wrote Prometheus Bound. Skeptics note that the play features simpler linguistics, unusually elaborate staging, and a deeply uncharacteristic, tyrannical depiction of Zeus. Roberts judiciously concludes that while his son Euphorion may have completed an unfinished draft, the play was universally viewed as Aeschylean in antiquity, and thus we should continue to treat it as such.
Jeff adds fascinating historical context, placing the play’s composition somewhere between 479 and 424 BC. He argues that ancient Athenian audiences would have viewed the theatrical debates on the stage of Dionysus as a direct mirror to the political debates happening nearby on the Pnyx (the crowded, physical hill where the Athenian democracy met to vote on war and peace). In this light, the tyrannical Zeus in the play might easily serve as a political stand-in for a contemporary Athenian leader like Pericles.
The play itself deviates heavily from Hesiod’s original mythological source material. Aeschylus masterfully reframes Prometheus’s theft of fire; rather than a simple act of revenge against Zeus, the play paints the Titan as a dedicated savior of humanity. In the opening recitation, Prometheus recounts how he gave mortals homes of sun-warmed brick, numbers, writing, yoked animals, and sailing ships, yet tragically has no device to escape his own present misery.
The Reluctant Smith God and the Oceanids
Dave reads the opening lines of the tragedy in beautifully metered ancient Greek, reminding Jeff that the emotional experience of classical tragedy is far closer to an opera than a standard Broadway musical.
The play opens in the desolate Scythian wilderness with four characters on stage: Hephaestus (the smith god), Prometheus, and the anthropomorphized concepts of Power (Kratos) and Force (Bia). Power harshly commands Hephaestus to chain Prometheus to the jagged rocks as punishment for stealing fire and giving it to mortals.
Interestingly, Hephaestus is deeply reluctant to carry out the torture. Recognizing Prometheus as a fellow god and family member, Hephaestus laments the assignment but notes that “Zeus is not to be won over; he is harsh, as all those new to power are harsh”. Dave and Jeff analyze this hesitation, noting that Hephaestus was frequently mocked and picked on by the other Olympians, perhaps giving him genuine sympathy for a suffering underdog. Furthermore, because Zeus had only recently defeated the Titans to seize control of the cosmos, his absolute ruthlessness reflects the classic insecurity of a new ruler aggressively attempting to cement his authority.
Once Prometheus is chained, the Daughters of Ocean (the Oceanids) arrive as the play’s chorus. Unusually, these minor divinities cast their full sympathies behind the suffering Titan, weeping over Zeus’s unbending mind and his cruel subjugation of heaven’s children.
Sponsors: Fueling the Classical Renaissance
Before the National Liver Society inevitably kicks them out of the studio, the hosts take a moment to thank their exceptionally generous sponsors.
- Ratio Coffee: The entrebrewneur Mark Hellweg has created an absolute masterpiece. If Prometheus had a beautifully crafted Ratio 8 or Ratio 6 machine while chained to the rock, the flawless bloom and brew cycle would have completely changed his bitter attitude. Visit ratiocoffee.com and use the code ANCOF7 for 15% off your entire order.
- Hackett Publishing: The publishers of Deborah Roberts’s Prometheus Bound offer an expansive catalog of accessible, affordable texts spanning from East Asian history to classical mythology. Jeff specifically praises the clever Hackett covers, noting that the cover for this play features Arnaldo Pomodoro’s cracked metallic sphere, representing a fractured, terrifyingly insecure cosmos. Go to hackettpublishing.com and use the code AN2023 to receive 20% off your entire order and free shipping.
- MossMethod & LatinPerDiem: Do you want to read ancient texts without constantly flipping through a heavy lexicon? Check out mossmethod.com to take your ancient Greek from neophyte to erudite with Dave’s intuitive modules and live Friday “Moffice Hours”. Additionally, master the Latin language from the ground up by visiting latinperdiem.com/llpsi to learn using Hans Ørberg’s Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata. Use the code 10PLUS for a 10% discount.
The Gustatory Parting Shot
To officially close out Episode 130, Dave surprisingly turns to a famous English philosopher for the episode’s Gustatory Parting Shot: John Michael “Ozzy” Osbourne.
“Killing a pig for a good old fry up is one thing, but there’s no excuse for being cruel, even if you’re a bored teenage kid.”
Grab a warm fry up, dodge the falling turtles, and keep taking in the classics. Valete!
