Aeschylus (es'-ke-lus), an eminent Greek tragedian, born at Athens, 525 B.C. Of 76 tragedies which he wrote, fifty were crowned. Seven of them only remain; viz, "Prometheus Bound," "The Seven Chiefs Before Thebes," "The Persians," "Agamemnon," "The Choephori," "The Eumenides," and "The Suppliants." In his old age, Aeschylus retired to the court of Hiero, King of Sicily. The oracle having predicted that the fall of a house should prove fatal to him, he went to reside in the fields, and was killed, it is said, by a tortoise which an eagle dropped upon his head. Died, 456 B.C.

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