Against a Prometheia: Rethinking the Connected Trilogy

summary: This paper argues that Prometheus Bound and Prometheus Unbound were independent plays. It reevaluates the evidence for connected trilogies in general and questions the assumption that this was Aeschylus’s preferred dramatic structure. It considers both the external and internal evidence for the connection of the two Prometheus plays, and concludes that they were originally written and produced independently—either by two authors, one of whom was deliberately referring to the work of his predecessor, or by a single author who revisited a mythological thread on a separate occasion.