497/6-406/5 B.C.E.
Tragic Playwright

Significance. With Sophocles tragedy reached what many in the ancient and modern world have felt to be its highest point. The second of the three surviving Athenian tragedians, he was born in Colonus, just outside Athens, a generation after Aeschylus. It is recorded that in 480 B.C.E. he was chosen to lead a choral celebration of the great victory over the Persians at Salamis, an event which begins his continued involvement with both the artistic and the civic aspect of Athenian life. In 468 B.C.E. he put on his first play and defeated Aeschylus, but the production dates of few of his other works are known. Seven of his approximately 123 plays survive, and two can be dated accurately: Philoctetes was produced in 409 B.C.E. and Oedipus at Colonus posthumously in 401 B.C.E. (There is some reason for...