Looking at Persians by David Stuttard;

Author:David Stuttard; [Stuttard, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781350227941
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Published: 2022-07-18T00:00:00+00:00

Yet the subsequent course of fifth-century history may well make us doubt whether the lesson of Zeus kolastês [‘punisher of pride’, line 827] was really grasped by the Athenians. Aeschylus might indeed have felt it a deplorable thing, if the patriotic emotions which the play aroused did more to determine Athenian policy and actions than the warning against acts of hubris which he had employed the resources of his art to make effective.35

The history of foreign wars across the globe has made Persians sadly relevant across the centuries. Given the play’s focus on the natural world, we also can read the play as a dire warning against our ongoing assault on the environment, our systematic disregard for the continuation of life on the planet. Rising sea levels, global warming, the climate crisis and the mass extinction of animals and plants represent nature’s response to the excesses of the modern world. To be sure, these issues have no direct bearing on Persians; Aeschylus would have thought it incredible that humans could perpetrate so great a disaster. Mutatis mutandis, we have come to resemble the Persians, incredulous to our ever-mounting losses, forced to face the truth that inconceivable and overwhelming disasters are already upon us.

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