About The Author

Hey everyone!! So last time I posted the introduction, it was about the story, Oedipus Rex, right!? Today, I will introduce you to the maker, author, founder..etc. who is responsible to one of the best tragedy stories ever written....

                                                                      SOPHOCLES

Sophocles was born at Colonus in Attica, c. 496 B.C., about a mile from the city of Athens. He was born the son of a wealthy weaponry and armory merchant named Sophillus. As such, he was very privileged and grew up with many of the conveniences and advances of a thriving Greek Empire. He was well educated in all of the arts—including poetry, dance, philosophy, music, mathematics, astronomy, law, athletics and military tactics—and was chosen at age sixteen to lead a boys’ choir at a war victory celebration. At age twenty-eight, he began competing in the City Dionysia, an annual festival held at the Theatre of Dionysus, god of wine and revelry, which presented new plays of the time.

His first appearance yielded great results, and he won first place, beating the legendary Aeschylus while doing so. This would be the first of an astounding eighteen victories won at the City Dionysia, more than Aeschylus and the distinguished Euripides combined. Sophocles was the only playwright of his time that did not perform in all of his own plays, owing to his weak voice.

When Sophocles gave up acting, he took to new areas of interest. He became part of the Board of Generals, which dealt with civil and military affairs in Athens. He would also later become a city director of the Treasury, helping to control funds of the Delian Confederacy. Sophocles also took part in actual combat—he witnessed the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, and served as a general alongside Pericles in the war on Samos.

While he did undertake other jobs, Sophocles continued his writing until the end of his life. He wrote over 120 plays, many of them great tragedies. He introduced the third actor, and did away with Aeschylus’ trilogy-based writing style. That is to say, he made each of his tragedies its own story, unlike Aeschylus and other writers of the time, who used three tragedies to tell one story.

One account of history states that, towards the end of his life, Sophocles’ sons wanted him to be declared mentally incompetent, and brought the case to court. Accounts from Cicero and Plutarch say that Sophocles responded in his own defense by reading a passage from the then unpublished Oedipus at Colonus, so impressing the jury that they enthusiastically acquitted him—surely no incompetent person could write such beautiful words.

 Shortly after this final addition to his trilogy of Oedipus was published in 405 B.C., Sophocles joined Aeschylus and Euripides in the underworld, ending a great age of tragedy. He left behind him a wife, Nicostrate, and her son Iophon, also a writer of tragedy. Also, his son with his mistress Theoris of Sicyon, Agathon, fathered Sophocles the Younger, another writer.