10 Weirdest Ways Famous Ancient Greeks Died
3. Aeschylus — Killed By Falling Tortoise
One of the three most important playwrights in Ancient Greece, Aeschylus also happened to have a particularly bald head, which an eagle looking to burst open the shell of a tortoise it had caught mistook for a rock. As such, aside from developing tragedy into a true art form, Aeschylus can also be credited with dying from the blow of a plummeting tortoise dropped on his head by a hungry eagle.
In old age, Aeschylus, by far the most contemporaneously successful of the three great Athenian tragedians, visited Sicily. Sojourning outside the city, he is recorded to have met his end, courtesy of the plummeting shelled beast.
Modern conjectures note that two potential vultures, the lammergeier or the Cinereous vulture, do actually break tortoise shells open by dropping them onto the rocks. One ancient source adds the extra spice to the tale that Aeschylus was living outdoors at the time to avoid a prophecy that he would killed by the 'fall of a house.' That aside, the main doubt around whether this happened is simply how daft it is, but there's no evidence or reports to the contrary.