460-59 Probable date of _The Suppliants_, if the play be connected with
the alliance between Argos and Athens (B.C. 461), and the war
with the Persian forces in Egypt, upon which the Athenians had
entered as allies of the Libyan Prince Inaros. (B.C. 460.)
The date of _Prometheus Bound_ has been referred to B.C. 470 on
the strength of a description of Ætna (vv. 370-380), which is
supposed to be a reference to the eruption of B.C. 477. Internal
evidence, however, seems to warrant the view that _The
Suppliants_ and the _Prometheus Bound_ were separated by only a
brief interval of time.
458 Æschylos in Athens. He found new men and new methods;
institutions, held most sacred as the safeguard of Athenian
religion, were being criticised and attacked; the Court of
Areiopagos was threatened with abolition under pretence of
reform.
Production of the Oresteian Trilogy (or, rather, tetralogy, as
in addition to the _Agamemnon_, the _Libation-pourers_, and the
_Eumenides_, there was a satyric drama, _Proteus_).
This trilogy was a conservative protest, religious, social, and
political, which culminated in the assertion of the divine
authority of the Areiopagos.
Popular feeling was once more excited against the poet, who left
Athens never to return, and settled at Gela, in Sicily, under
the patronage of Hieron.