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Sophocles
10-06-2013 18:25Sophocles was an Athenian tragic playwright, reckoned among the three great classical tragedians, with the other two being Aeschylus and Euripides. Sofoklis’ work has been seen as Greek tragedy’s high point, with his tragedy “Oedipus the King” admired more than any other.
Sophokles was born the son of Sophilus, a rich manufacturer of Colonus, around 496 B.C. He grew up during the Persian Wars and he was a teenager at the victorious sea battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. when he was honored with the assignment of dancing and singing naked at the trophy monument. To win this commission he must have been a performer of considerable talent and beauty.
At about the age of 28 Sofokles won his first tragedy competition at the major annual drama festival known as the City Dionysia. We know that one of the playwrights whom he defeated this year was the well established tragedian Aeschylus, but the winning tragedies have not been preserved through history.
Sophokles went on to win a total of 24 victories in over 65 more years of writing. Of the seven times when he failed to win first prize, he always took second prize, never third. This remarkable record makes Sophokles the most successful tragedian of his day.
In 443 B.C. Sophokles was elected to the office of treasurer of the Delian League. In 441 B.C., reportedly in recognition of his play Antigone, he was elected for the following year as a general of the Athenian armed forces. Under Perikles’ senior command, General Sophokles served in the campaign against the rebellious island of Samos. In 420 B.C. Sophokles was active in developing the god Asclepius’s cult at Athens, which may mean that he helped establish a public hospital.
In about 406 B.C., after Euripides died, the 90 year old Sophokles presented his chorus dressed in mourning, to commemorate his dead rival. Soon afterward, in 406 B.C. Sophokles himself died, and he was remembered in Aristophanes’ comedy Frogs which is set in the Underworld.
The tragedies that survived did so because they were chosen in later antiquity to be taught in schools: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus. Oedipus the King and Antigone are today among the most accessible and widely read of all existing Greek tragedies.
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