Biography:

Born: 525/524 B.C.E. in Eleusis, near Athens, Greece.
Died: 456/455 B.C.E. aged about 69, in Gela, Sicily.
Occupation: Greek playwright and soldier.
Born to a noble and wealthy Athenian family in the town of Elusis. His father was Euphorion, a wealthy man of the upper class. As a youth, he worked at a vineyard until, according to the 2nd-century AD geographer Pausanias, the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep and commanded him to turn his attention to the nascent art of tragedy. As soon as he woke from the dream, the young Aeschylus began writing a tragedy, and his first performance took place in 499 BC, when he was only 26 years old. After fifteen years, his skill was great enough to win a prize for his plays at Athens' annual city Dionysia playwriting competition. He entered his tragedies into the annual competition in Athens and won his first award in 484 B.C.E. aged 41.
Aeschylus' writings were strongly Athenian and rich with moral authority. He carried home the first place award from the Athens competition thirteen times!
Because Aeschylus was writing for the Greek theater in its beginning stages, he is credited with having introduced many features that are now considered traditional. Formerly plays were written for only one actor and a chorus. Aeschylus added parts for a second and a third actor as well as rich costumes and dance.
Aeschylus is also credited as the first European dramatist whose plays were preserved, although of his ninety plays only seven are still preserved.
He wrote about grand ideas in a correspondingly grand style. Mighty themes and mighty men crossed his stage. Aeschylus has been described as a great theologian (a specialist in the study of faith) because of his literary focus on the workings of the Greek gods.
Modern scholarship has shown that the first of Aeschylus's plays was The Persians. It is also the only play on a historical subject that has survived in Greek drama. This play is seen from a Persian point of view. His theme sought to show how a nation could suffer due to its pride.
Prometheus Bound is perhaps Aeschylus' most well-known tragedy because of his depiction of the famous Prometheus, who is chained to a mountain peak and cannot move. He is being punished for defying the authority of the god Zeus by bringing fire to mankind. Zeus is depicted as a bully and Prometheus as a suffering but defiant rebel. Both are guilty of pride. Both must learn through suffering: Zeus to exercise power with mercy and justice, and Prometheus to respect authority.
Aeschylus' masterpiece is the Oresteia, the only preserved trilogy from Greek drama. The three plays are Agamemnon, The Choephori, and The Eumenides. Though they form separate dramas, they are united in their common theme of justice. King Agamemnon returns to his home after the Trojan War only to be murdered by his scheming wife, Clytemnestra, and her lover. The king's children seek revenge that ultimately leads to their trial by the gods. The theme of evil compounding evil is powerfully written.
Aeschylus was one of many Greeks who had been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries, a cult to Demeter based in his hometown of Eleusis. As the name implies, members of the cult were supposed to have gained some sort of mystical, secret knowledge. Firm details of the Mysteries' specific rites are sparse, as members were sworn under the penalty of death not to reveal anything about the Mysteries to non-initiates. Nevertheless, according to Aristotle it was alleged that Aeschylus had placed clues about the secret rites into one his surviving tragedies, Prometheus Bound. According to some sources, an angry mob tried to kill Aeschylus on the spot, but he fled the scene. When he stood trial for his offense, Aeschylus pleaded ignorance and was only spared because of his brave service in the Persian Wars.
Aeschylus’ Military Career
As a young man Aeschylus lived through many exciting events in the history of Athens. Politically the city underwent many constitutional reforms resulting in a democracy. Aeschylus became a soldier and took part in turning back a Persian invasion at the Battle of Marathon (490 B.C.E.) with his brother Cynegeirus (who was killed in the fighting).
He also fought at Salamis in 480 B.C.E. and whilst there is no mention of him fighting at Plataea (479 B.C.E.), it is possible that he may have been there.
He was a frequent visitor to Sicily under the rule of Heiron I of Syracuse, and served in his court as did Simonides, Pindar, Bacchylides, and Epicharmus. It is likely that Aeschylus was very influential in the political alliances between Athens & Syracuse and may well have watched Heiron's Panhellic victories at Delphi in 470 B.C.E. & Olympia in 468 B.C.E.
If we wanted to take poetic licence to its height - who is to say that Aeschylus did not accompany Heiron to Magna Graecia and serve in the combined Syracuse & Cumae fleet at the naval battle of Cumae in 474 B.C.E. in which the Etruscan and Carthaginian fleet was heavily defeated & the Greeks of Campania were saved from Etruscan domination. Surely Heiron would have welcomed the participation of Aeschylus, hero of Marathon & Salamis, if not for his military prowness then surely to record his victory in poetic verse? And surely no poet or tragedian could have resisted the possible sources of inspiration that offered, and who is to say that his account of that victory is not one of the 85 plus works of his that did not survive?

The Death of Aeschylus
Legend has it, an eagle, mistaking the playwright's bald crown for a stone, dropped a tortoise on his head (though some accounts differ, claiming it was a stone dropped by an eagle or vulture that mistook his bald head for the egg of a flightless bird). This incident may not be as unlikely as it seems, as the Lammergeier is native to the Mediterranean region – a large eagle-like vulture known to drop bones and tortoises on rocks to break them open.
Aeschylus would continue to be honored by the Athenians, who respected his work so highly that they allowed other playwrights to reproduce his plays as part of the Dionysia rather than presenting original works of their own. His sons Euphorion and Euæon and his nephew Philocles would follow in his footsteps and become playwrights themselves.

Aeschylus's bond with Sicily continued and when he died he was emtombed in the Sicilian city of Gela in 456 B.C.E. Today, the plays of Aeschylus may be remembered more than his battle accomplishments, but it is interesting to note that in the inscription on his gravestone, written by himself before his death, it states:

This tomb the dust of Aeschylus doth hide,
Euphorion's son and fruitful Gela's pride
How tried his valour, Marathon may tell
And long-haired Medes, who knew it all too well.

(Nb. The medes referred to above are the Persians.)