(If, though, by that term one means a perfection of form characterized by symmetry and restraint, with Sophocles as a kind of literary counterpart to the Parthenon, one will be in danger of going seriously astray.) Other details of Sophocles' life that scholars are inclined to accept as true from the notoriously unreliable ancient biographies are that his father was a businessman called Sophillus; that he had a musical education and achieved success in that sphere (he sang a solo part in the victory paean after the battle of Salamis in 480 B.C.); that his first victory in the principal dramatic festival, the Greater Dionysia, occurred in 468 B.C.; and that he never won less than second prize and came in first on at least eighteen occasions.
Besides his artistic achievements Sophocles held the post of treasurer (Hellenotamias) in either 443 B.C. or 442 B.C., and in the war to suppress a revolution in Samos from 441 B.C. to 439 B.C. he held the command as general along with Pericles as a reward, an ancient source records, for his Antigone. The reason given sounds hardly plausible, but since the dates, both absolutely and relatively, of Sophocles' plays are largely unknown, the story may count as possible evidence when the attempt to construct a chronological framework for his literary output is made.
