“Æschylus used to say that his tragedies were only slices cut from the great banquet of Homeric dainties.”—Athenæus, VIII. p. 348.
In the Frogs (v. 886), Aristophanes makes him show at once the religiousness of his character, and its source, in the two lines of invocation—
“O thou that nourished my young soul, Demeter,
Make thou me worthy of thy mysteries!”
From the διδασκαλία, or note of the year of representation with the name of the author, in the argument to that play. On the arguments from internal evidence brought forward to prove that the Suppliants is the oldest extant play, I place no value whatever. The simplicity of structure proves nothing, because it proves too much. Several of the extant plays are equally simple. For aught we know, it may have been the practice of Æschylus to the very last, as we see in the case of the Choephoræ, to give the middle piece of his trilogies less breadth and variety than the opening and concluding ones; and it is almost certain that the Suppliants was either the second or the first play of a trilogy.
Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 1060, Welcker’s Tril. p. 475, and the Vit. Robortel. (which, however, I have not seen).