BrokenTune

The production of 472 is the only one by Aeschylus that is known to have consisted of four plays whose stories were, on the face of it, unrelated - indeed, they were not even placed in proper chronological order. The first play was Phineus, about an episode in the saga of the Argonauts. This was followed by The Persians; then, jumping back to the heroic age, by Glaucus of Potniae, about a man who subjected his horses to an unnatural training regime and was devoured by them after crashing in a chariot race; and then by a satyr play about Prometheus ("Prometheus the Fire-Bearer" or "Fire-Kindler"). Repeated efforts have been made to find method behind the apparent madness of this arrangement, so far with little success.

Bwahahaha. I can't help imagining someone making a simple mistake when noting down the running order of the plays in Ancient times and then fast-forwarding to Classicists from all over the world being puzzled by this.

Anyway, I also learned so far that plays in Aeschylus' time were also subject to political censorship. They had a system of fines. Playwrights also rewrote plays or made alterations to evade fines, and some of those censors must have been rather thick not to spot that the underlying message had not changed. Apparently, The Persians may include elements of this.  

I love this kind of subversion.