Aeschylus was one of the foundational dramatists of ancient Greece and is widely regarded as a central figure in the development of Greek tragedy. Writing in the fifth century BCE, he helped shape the dramatic form that would influence Sophocles, Euripides, Roman tragedy, Renaissance theatre, and the later European literary tradition. His surviving plays are marked by solemn grandeur, moral conflict, religious seriousness, and a powerful sense of human beings caught between divine law, political authority, and fate. Works traditionally attributed to Aeschylus include The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliants, the Oresteia, and Prometheus Bound.