Sophocles (c. 496 - c. 406 BCE) was an ancient Greek playwright who ranks with Aeschylus and Euripides among the three great tragedians of classical Athens. [1] Over a career of some sixty years he wrote around 120 plays and won repeated victories at the City Dionysia, the city's leading dramatic festival. [2] Only seven of his tragedies survive complete, yet works such as Oedipus Rex and Antigone have remained central to the Western dramatic tradition. [1]
Early life
Sophocles was born around 496 BCE in Colonus, a village just outside Athens that he would later commemorate in one of his final plays. [1] He came from a prosperous family; his father, Sophillus, is said to have owned an armour-making business, which afforded the young Sophocles a thorough education in music, dance, and gymnastics. [2] According to ancient tradition, he was chosen to lead the chorus of boys that celebrated the Greek naval victory at Salamis in 480 BCE. [1]
Dramatic career
Sophocles rose to prominence at the City Dionysia, the Athenian festival at which tragedians competed for first prize. Tradition holds that he won his earliest victory in 468 BCE, defeating the older master Aeschylus. [2] Across roughly six decades he produced some 120 plays and was awarded first prize many times, a record of success unmatched among the Athenian tragedians. [1]
Innovations
Sophocles is credited with several lasting changes to the form of tragedy. He introduced a third speaking actor, extending the drama beyond the exchanges of two; he enlarged the chorus from twelve members to fifteen; and he is associated with the use of painted scenery. [1] He also moved away from the connected trilogy favoured by Aeschylus toward self-contained plays, each complete in its own dramatic action. [2]
Surviving plays
Although only seven of his tragedies survive in full, they include some of the most influential works of European drama. The three so-called Theban plays, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, dramatize the doomed royal house of Thebes, while Ajax, Electra, The Women of Trachis, and Philoctetes treat other figures of Greek myth. [1] Oedipus Rex was later singled out by Aristotle in the Poetics as a model of tragic construction. [2]
Public life and legacy
Sophocles was an active citizen of Athens as well as a dramatist. Ancient sources report that he served as a treasurer of the imperial funds, held a generalship alongside Pericles, and was associated with a healing cult as a priest. [1] He died in Athens around 406 BCE, in his ninetieth year. [2] His focus on individual character and moral conflict, together with his refinement of tragic structure, shaped the dramatic tradition for centuries and continues to inform how tragedy is understood today. [1] He is remembered as one of the foremost playwrights of antiquity, and his surviving tragedies are still widely performed and studied. [3]
