Aeschylus was the only man of his age, or indeed of any age, who can compare with the great master of the modern drama in sublimity of conception and grandeur of poetic imagery. As to the esteem in which he was held by his contemporaries and his immediate posterity there is sufficient evidence, and first in the Frogs of Aristophanes, who there describes his temper as proud, stern and impatient; his sentiments as pure, noble and warlike; his genius inventive, magnificent and towering; his style lofty, bold and impetuous, full of gorgeous imagery and ponderous expressions, while in the dramatic arrangement of his pieces there remained much of ancient simplicity and somewhat of uncouth rudeness. Dionysius of Halicarnassus lauds the splendor of his talents, the propriety of his characters, the originality of his ideas and the force, variety and beauty of his language. Longinus speaks of the bold magnificence of his imagery, though condemning some of his conceptions as rude and turgid and his expressions as sometimes overstrained. Quintilian ascribes to him dignity of sentiment, sublimity of ideas and loftiness in style, yet often overcharged in diction and irregular in composition. Such, as seen through the eyes of antiquity, was the Shakespeare of the Greeks.