Later, after the military catastrophe of the Sicilian adventure in 413 in the war with Sparta, Sophocles was made a member of the Athenian senate. Other and more-suspect biographical details may be omitted from this sketch, except for two of a different kind: that he was a priest of an obscure god connected with healing; and that Aristophanes the comic poet, writing soon after his death, described him as a man of good humor, a verdict that other anecdotes support.
This good-humored, pious citizen of Athens wrote, on the most likely estimate, some 123 plays. (Among other writings ascribed to him, the name of one in particular, a prose work titled On the Chorus, provokes thought.) Apart from many extant fragments that range from the sizable remnants of a satyr play, The Trackers (Ichneutai ), down to scraps of perhaps no more than a single word, all that has survived of Sophocles' dramatic work are seven of his 123 plays. Of these seven there is a firm date, 409, for Philoctetes, and Oedipus at Colonus is known to have been his last creation because it was produced posthumously in 401.
This is a free page. This page contains 186 words. This
biography contains 4,901 words (approx. 16 pages at 300
words per page).
Read the rest of this Biography with our Sophocles Access Pass.
