Aeschylus (born 525/524 BCE in Eleusis, Attica – died 456/455 BCE in Gela, Sicily) was an ancient Greek playwright.

The earliest of the three most famous Athenian tragedians, Aeschylus wrote around 90 plays. Seven of them survive in their entirety, The Persians (472 BCE), Seven Against Thebes (467 BCE), Suppliants (ca. 463BCE), the Oresteia trilogy (458 BCE) – which consists of the three plays Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers (Choephori), and The Furies (Eumenides) –, and Prometheus Bound (c. 457 BCE).