Sophocles

Sophocles was born about 497 BC at Colonus just outside Athens and lived through the city's golden age under Pericles. He was not only a dramatist but also served as a general and a treasurer, and was much loved by his fellow citizens. He won the dramatic competition more than twenty times and never came third. He added a third actor and enlarged the chorus. Of over a hundred plays seven survive, among them Oedipus the King, which Aristotle took as the model of tragedy, and Antigone, which poses the lasting question of conflict between the law of the state and conscience. He died about 406 BC.