[3][4] It was long thought to be the earliest surviving play by Aeschylus due to the relatively anachronistic function of the chorus as the protagonist of the drama.

[7] Furthermore, the suppliants threaten to commit suicide if their plea is rejected, which would bring ritual pollution on the city and its people and draw down the anger of Zeus upon them.

[8][9] George Thomson, expanding on D. S. Robertson, interpreted the tetralogy as a defence of the Athenian law requiring widows to marry a brother or cousin of their deceased husband in some circumstances in order to keep his property within the family.

[10] The French scholars Jean-Pierre Vernant and Pierre Vidal-Naquet argued that the Danaïds objected to cousin marriage because they saw it as incest; this theory has, however, been discredited.

[11] Edith Hall writes, Aeschylus' Suppliants concerns the shared history of the Argive Greeks and the Egyptians, but at its psychological heart lies the dramatization of violent ethnic confrontation.

In its discussion of physical appearance, skin colour, and clothing, as well as in its comparisons of religion, behavioural codes, and political culture, the dialogue richly reflects the interest that mid-fifth-century Greeks had in the different peoples with whom they shared the Mediterranean litoral.

This is a speech by the goddess of love Aphrodite praising the marriage between the sky (the groom) and the earth (the bride) from which rain comes, nourishing cattle, corn, and fruits.

[10] As the plot of the remaining plays has been generally reconstructed, following a war with the Aegyptids in which Pelasgus has been killed, Danaus becomes tyrant of Argos.

An alternative opinion is that Hypermnestra is put on trial for disobeying her father and Aphrodite successfully defends her similarly to Apollo's defense of Orestes in Oresteia.