Prometheia

This article is about the classical Greek plays concerning the titan Prometheus. For the comic book series written by Alan Moore, see Promethea. For the festival in honour of Prometheus, see Prometheus.

The Prometheia (Ancient Greek: Προμήθεια) is a trilogy of plays about the Titan Prometheus. It was attributed in Antiquity to the 5th-century BC Greek tragedian Aeschylus. Though an Alexandrian catalogue of Aeschylean play titles designates the trilogy Hoi Prometheis ("the Prometheuses"), in modern scholarship the trilogy has been designated the Prometheia to mirror the title of Aeschylus' only extant trilogy, the Oresteia. Unlike the Oresteia, only one play from this trilogy—Prometheus Bound—survives. Inasmuch as the authorship of Prometheus Bound continues to be debated, the very existence of a Prometheus trilogy is uncertain. To the extent that modern scholars postulate the existence of such a trilogy by a single author, the consensus holds that it comprised Prometheus Bound, Prometheus Unbound, and Prometheus the Fire-Bringer, in that order.[1]

  1. ^ For an introduction to the issues surrounding the trilogy's reconstruction, see (e.g.) D.J. Conacher, Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound: a Literary Commentary. Toronto, 1980; and the relevant chapter in Alan Sommerstein, Aeschylean Tragedy. Bari, 1996.