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Home / Literature and art / Legend: Aeschylus died at Gela in 456 or 455 BC when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head
Case file s1829 · Literature and art · 456 BCE
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456 BCE
Map of Italy, marked on the globe
Map of Italy. Neq00. CC0, Wikimedia Commons.
Died
c. 456 BC (legend; 456 or 455 BC)
Place
Gela, Sicily · Italy
Field
playwright (Oresteia) · Literature and writing on the timeline
Legal tradition
Greek (Athens) · Civil law
Historical event
The Athenian victory over Persia at Marathon, 490 BC
Literature and artBodies, bones and burialsAncient worldEuropeItaly
AI illustration: An eagle drops a tortoise over the coast at Gela, Sicily, 456 BC
Illustration made with AI for celebrity.estate.

Legend: this account comes from tradition, an epic or an old chronicle. Records do not prove it happened as told.

Legend: Aeschylus died at Gela in 456 or 455 BC when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head

Aeschylus returned to Sicily for the last time in 458 BC and died at Gela in 456 or 455 BC. The manner of his death is legend, not documented history. Valerius Maximus wrote that an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head outside the city, mistaking it for a rock. Pliny the Elder, in Natural History book 10, adds that Aeschylus stayed outdoors to avoid a prophecy that he would die under a falling object; Pliny's own text refers to a falling house. Modern scholars say the story may be a legend arising from a misunderstanding of the iconography on his tomb, and some suggest it was inspired by his lost play Psychagogoi, in which Tiresias predicts a similar death for Odysseus. The gravestone inscription, preserved in the Greek Anthology, names his father Euphorion and his Athenian birth, and cites his courage at Marathon. It does not mention his plays. No will, estate or heirs are documented in the sources reached. The tomb at Gela has not been located†.

What the law took from it

For a man with no surviving will, the surviving record is a short epitaph, and it names the battle, not the plays.

Sources
  1. perseus.tufts.eduScholarship
  2. livingpoets.dur.ac.ukScholarship
  3. Wikipedia (English)Encyclopedia

Cite as: celebrity.estate, “Legend: Aeschylus died at Gela in 456 or 455 BC when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his head,” story s1829, https://www.celebrity.estate/aeschylus-456-bc, updated 30 October 2026.

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Where this case sits

Literature and artBodies, bones and burialsAncient worldEuropeCivil lawItaly