The Loeb Classical Library, now almost a hundred years old and constituting over [500] volumes, has proven itself (like its French counterpart, the Bude series) an invaluable tool for scholars and students from all over the academic landscape. With Greek or Latin text on the left and English translation on the facing page, it provides quick, consistent and user-friendly access to a wide range of authors, and does not discriminate between those who want to read in the original and those who just want an English version...Alan Sommerstein's three-volume Aeschylus...is in many respects the best critical edition of this playwright available in any format. Sommerstein's authority as a linguist and expert in Aeschylean drama is second to none, and he has provided an up-to-date and carefully constituted text for the seven surviving plays, plus all of the fragmentary remains that are at least one line long. Important manuscript variants and modern conjectures are scrupulously recorded (making the page a little cluttered, but clear enough); and in addition he has provided copious notes, fuller and more numerous than is normal for a Loeb, on matters of myth, geography, history and interpretation. Particularly welcome is the well-documented and clearly presented volume of Fragments--for of course the seven plays we happen to possess are by no means all that Aeschylus wrote, and not necessarily even the seven best: the trilogies dealing with Achilles at Troy, or with Pentheus and the Bacchants, for example, seem to have been especially daring and influential. The facing English translation is a trustworthy guide for all who want help in figuring out wjat Aeschylus (probably) wrote and meant. -- Mark Griffith * Times Literary Supplement *
