Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women
Teacher’s Guide | Classical Reference Library
Richer Resources Editorial Team
Purpose of This Guide
Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women follows fifty daughters of Danaus who flee Egypt and seek protection in Argos rather than be forced to marry their cousins. Their appeal confronts the Argive king with a difficult choice: honor the sacred duty to protect suppliants, or risk war with their pursuers.
This guide emphasizes asylum, consent, political responsibility, collective speech, and the limits of our knowledge about the lost companion plays.
Historical and Literary Context
The play belongs to a trilogy about the Danaids, but the other tragedies are lost.
Once thought to be Aeschylus’ earliest surviving play, it is now generally placed in the fifth century BCE, probably around the 460s; the precise date remains uncertain.
The Chorus of Danaids carries much of the dramatic action. The play’s questions about refuge and the authority to decide marriage are rooted in its ancient religious and political setting.
Plot at a Glance
Danaus and his fifty daughters arrive in Argos, fleeing the sons of Aegyptus, who seek to marry them. The women gather at sacred altars and invoke Zeus as protector of suppliants.
King Pelasgus hears their appeal. He recognizes both their claim to protection and the danger of bringing war upon his city. Rather than decide alone, he refers the matter to the Argive people, who vote to shelter the women.
An Egyptian herald arrives and threatens to take them by force, but Pelasgus intervenes and insists that the women cannot be seized against their will.
The Danaids receive protection, although the danger from their pursuers remains. The surviving play does not resolve the larger myth.
Principal Figures
The Danaids (Chorus) — Fifty sisters who seek sanctuary and resist the marriages demanded of them.
Danaus — Their father, who guides their flight and advises them about their appeal.
Pelasgus — King of Argos, torn between religious obligation and responsibility to his people.
Egyptian Herald — Representative of the pursuing men, who threatens force and challenges the women’s refuge.
Argive attendants — Support the king and help establish the public setting of the decision.
Major Themes
Protection and Asylum
What duties arise when strangers seek safety at a community’s sacred places?
Consent and Marriage
The women refuse marriages imposed on them; their reasons and the play’s treatment of marriage deserve careful examination.
Public Responsibility
Pelasgus will not impose a dangerous decision without consulting his people.
Divine Obligation
Zeus and the sanctity of supplication shape the claims of the women and the king.
Foreignness and Belonging
The Danaids assert ancestral ties to Argos through Io while arriving as outsiders.
Fear and Coercion
The contrast between the women’s prayers and the herald’s threats makes the stakes immediate.
Dramatic Techniques
The Chorus is unusually prominent: its prayers, fears, and arguments drive the play.
Sacred altars turn the stage into a place where violence would also be religious wrongdoing.
The confrontation with the herald dramatizes the threat previously described.
Pelasgus’ deliberation turns a family conflict into a public political decision.
Teaching Objectives
Students should be able to:
- Explain why the Danaids flee and why they seek refuge at Argos.
- Describe Pelasgus’ competing obligations.
- Analyze the Chorus as an active participant.
- Distinguish religious supplication from modern legal asylum.
- Discuss consent, coercion, and public decision-making.
- Identify what the surviving play leaves unresolved.
A Flexible Teaching Sequence
- Introduce the Danaids, their pursuers, and the sacred practice of supplication.
- Read the Chorus’s opening appeal, noting its language of fear and divine protection.
- Examine Pelasgus’ questioning and his concerns about the city.
- Discuss the Argive assembly’s decision and the limits of the king’s power.
- Read the herald’s confrontation and Pelasgus’ response aloud.
- Return to the ending: what has been secured, and what remains uncertain?
Passages Worth Close Reading
The opening prayers — The women’s account of their flight and their appeal to Zeus.
The exchange with Pelasgus — Kinship, foreignness, and the cost of offering refuge.
The announcement of the people’s vote — Collective political responsibility.
The herald’s threats — Coercion contrasted with sanctuary.
The closing songs — Gratitude, anxiety, and unresolved tensions.
Core Discussion Questions
- What makes the Danaids’ appeal religious as well as political?
- Why does Pelasgus hesitate, even though he recognizes their danger?
- What changes when the people of Argos vote?
- How does the Chorus influence our understanding of the women as individuals and as a group?
- What does the herald’s behavior reveal about the threat they face?
- Does the ending feel like a victory, a temporary reprieve, or both?
Classroom Approach
Stage a brief council of Argos. Assign students the roles of Pelasgus, the Danaids, and Argive citizens.
Ask each to explain the risks of granting or denying protection using evidence from the play.
Afterward, compare the arguments with the actual vote, without treating ancient supplication as identical to present-day asylum law.
Interpretive Cautions
Do not assume the women’s refusal has one simple explanation; their language, ancestry, and attitudes toward marriage require close reading.
Do not present the lost trilogy’s later events as if they occur in this surviving play.
The date of performance is uncertain. Modern questions about refuge and consent can illuminate the drama, but the religious and political institutions of Argos are not modern ones.
Note to the Educator
This guide accompanies the Richer Resources Publications edition of Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women, translated by Ian Johnston.
Encourage students to ground claims in the surviving text, especially the Chorus’s speeches and Pelasgus’ deliberations.
A printable PDF version of this resource is available by email.
