βαθεῖαν ἄλοκα διὰ φρενὸς καρπούμενος,
ἐξ ἧς τὰ κεδνὰ βλαστάνει βουλεύματα.
His buckler bore no blazon; for he seeks
Not to seem great, but to be great indeed,
Reaping the deep-ploughed furrow of his soul
Wherefrom the harvest of good counsel springs.
As these lines were declaimed in the theatre, Plutarch[224] tells us, every one turned and gazed at Aristides the Just. The first half of the play is in strictness not dramatic[225] at all—a merely static presentment of the situation: a city in a state of siege, panic among the women, resolution in the mind of the general. The later portion gives us decisive action. The King rushes to his fratricidal duel, spurred on by the invisible curse; but even here there is no dramatic conflict of personalities like the altercation between the brothers in the Phœnissæ of Euripides. Such a collision is, however, provided at the very end, where Antigone defies the State.
As regards the Prometheus Vinctus (Προμηθεὺς δεσμώτης, “Prometheus Bound”) we are in doubt as to the date, the arrangement of the cast, and the other parts of the trilogy.
Concerning the date, we know that the play was written after 475 B.C., the year in which occurred that eruption of Etna described by Prometheus (vv. 363-72). Further, it is usually regarded as later than the Seven owing to the increased preponderance of dialogue over lyrics. Also, the supposition that three actors are required has led some scholars to believe that the Prometheus belongs to the period when Sophocles had introduced a third actor, and so to place it in the last part of the poet’s life.[226] The static nature of the drama might seem to forbid such a view, but possibly it formed the centre of the trilogy, the most likely place for an equilibrium of the tragic forces. And the theological basis of the whole series is so profound, that an approximation in date to the Oresteia is not unreasonable. On the whole, then, the Prometheus may be conjecturally assigned to about the year 465 B.C.
As for the division of the parts among the actors, we find in the opening scene three[227] persons engaged, Prometheus, Hephæstus, and Cratos (“Strength”). Prometheus, however, does not utter a word until his tormentors have retired, and it has been held that only two actors are needed here (as in the rest of the work). On this view, Prometheus would be represented by a lay-figure, either Hephæstus or Cratos would return unseen, delivering the later speeches of Prometheus from behind the figure, through a mouth-piece in the head. But as there was no curtain in the theatre, it would be necessary for the executioners to carry the lay-figure forth in view of the audience before the action began. The true objection to this is not its absurdity; an audience will tolerate much awkwardness in stage-management, if only it is accustomed to such conventions. But it would scarcely have harmed the play if the poet had dispensed with Cratos; the actor thus disengaged could have impersonated Prometheus from the beginning. That Æschylus saw this possibility cannot be doubted; therefore he did not feel bound to use a lay-figure; therefore he did not, and we must assume that he employed three actors.