Aeschylus was born about the year 525 BC in a small town called Eleusis, which is about 27 kilometers northwest of Athens. The date is based on counting back forty years from his first victory in the Great Dionysia. His family was rich, and his father, Euphorion, was a member of the Eupatridae, the ancient nobility of Attica. Pausanias wrote that Aeschylus worked in a vineyard until the god Dionysus visited him in his sleep. The god ordered him to write the first tragedies. His first play was performed in 499 BC, when he was only 26 years old.