Aeschylus
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Aeschylus. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
es'ki-lus (525-456 B. C.), one of the three great tragic poets of Greece. He composed over seventy tragedies and won the annual prize for excellence thirteen times. Many of these works have been lost; seven remain--The Persians, The Seven against Thebes, The Suppliants, Prometheus Bound, Agamemnon, The Choephori, and The Eumenides. When a successful rival finally appeared in Sophocles, Aeschylus is said to have retired in mortification to Sicily, where an idle story runs that an eagle mistook his bald head for a stone, and letting fall a tortoise upon it to break the shell, caused the poet's death. Aeschylus was a native of Attica and was of aristocratic parentage. When a young man, he took part in the struggle of Greece led by Athens against the Persian power. He distinguished himself for bravery in the battles of Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea. He was much interested in public affairs, and understood the significance of the Persian defeats which made Greece, with Athens at its head, the leading power in the world. He was opposed to an oligarchy, and likewise feared the results of unbridled popular rule. The following passage, translated from the Eumenides, advises the citizens of Athens to steer between an oligarchy and anarchy: Therefore, O citizens, I bid ye bow In awe to this command, Let no man live Uncurbed by law nor curbed by tyranny, Nor banish ye the monarchy of Awe Beyond the walls; untouched by fear divine No man doth justice in the world of men. Therefore in purity and holy dread Stand and revere. In the following quotation from the Americana reference is made to the strict rules which controlled the form of dramatic productions among the ancients: It is remarkable that in Aeschylus and Sophocles no deficiency of dramatic interest attends this severity of form. Even in the earliest examples, the metrical arrangements are consummate. The magnificent poetical quality of Aeschylus, the sense of overmastering fate with which he manages to charge all his drama, and the perfect humanity of Sophocles relieve their work entirely from the charge of sterility which has been brought against more modern imitations of their form. See Tragedy
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
A poet of Athens , son of Euphorion. He was in the Athenian army at the battles of battles of Marathon , Salamis , and Plataea ; but his most solid fame rests on his writings. He wrote ninety tragedies, forty of which were rewarded with a public prize. He was killed by the fall of a tortoise, dropped from the beak of an eagle on his head, B. c. 456.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The bare facts in Aiton's 1910 entry still stand: seven plays survive out of some seventy to ninety, and the eagle-and-tortoise death was already flagged there as "an idle story." What has moved is chronology and attribution. A papyrus published in 1952 (Oxyrhynchus 2256) recorded a production date around 463 B.C. for The Suppliants, overturning the long-held view that its heavy choral writing made it Aeschylus's earliest surviving play; and many scholars now doubt that Prometheus Bound is his at all, on grounds of metre, vocabulary and staging. The claim that he retired to Sicily "in mortification" at Sophocles' success is likewise treated as ancient gossip rather than biography.
Written for this edition, 2026.