Biography of Sophocles
by Professor Robin Mitchell-Boyask, GHR Classics

Adapted for IH students by Professor Mitchell-Boyask from the Perseus on-line Encyclopedia entry

Birth: at Colonus in Attica, c. 495 B.C.E.
Death: in Athens, approximately 405 B.C.E.

As with most authors of this period, our sources for the life of Sophocles are late, dominated by trivial details, entertaining but not very trustworthy. The little surviving contemporary testimony suggests that Sophocles was a man of great personal charm and happiness. In Aristophanes' Frogs, a comedy produced shortly after the deaths of Sophocles and Euripides, Dionysus, the patron god of tragedy, becomes frustrated with the lack of decent playwrights, proposes to descend into the underworld and bring Euripides back to life. The play evolves into a contest between Aeschylus and Euripides, whose styles most violently clashed, but Sophocles is mentioned three times during the play. Dionysus explains that he will not attempt to bring him back from Hades because Euripides was a scoundrel and would inevitably try to escape from Hades, but "Sophocles was good-natured here (i.e., on earth) and will be good-natured there (i.e., in the underworld)" (Aristophanes, Frogs 82) When Euripides first entered the Hades, he stole Aeschylus' seat and claimed primacy as chief poet in the underworld. Sophocles, however, who died shortly before Euripides, greeted Aeschylus with a kiss and clasped his hand. Should Euripides be victorious, then Sophocles would challenge Euripides, but if Aeschylus defeats Euripides, Sophocles would be content (Frogs 771-794). When the victorious Aeschylus is about to leave Hades, he entrusts his seat of honor to Sophocles (Frogs 1515-1519). In Plato's Republic (329B), Cephalus, an old man, defends old age; good-natured men have no cause to condemn their situation when they grow old, citing a time when he heard someone ask the aged Sophocles whether he could still sleep with a woman. "Hush, my friend," replied Sophocles, "I am only too grateful to have escaped from this, just as if I had escaped a crazed and savage master." Cephalus holds this attitude up as the proper one for a balanced human being. Handsome, successful and immensely talented, Sophocles seems an unlikely candidate for writing such lines as "Count no man blessed before he is dead" and "Better not to have been born at all."

In addition to his theatrical career, Sophocles seems to have held a number of important political positions, thus showing, as with Aeschylus, the strong bond between the city of Athens and its artists. He was a senior administrator in the Athenian Empire in 443, and shortly later was elected as one of the ten generals in charge of military affairs. In 413, he belonged to a committee of ten older citizens (Probouloi) which ultimately helped institute a temporary oligarchy. Although already in his eighties, Sophocles had served as one of these Probouloi and was asked whether he didn't agree that he had participated in a shameful affair. He replied that he had, but that there were no better alternatives at the time. This might be significant in light of the favorable references to democracy in his last play, Oedipus at Colonus.

Beyond his political activity, Sophocles also played a key role in Athenian religion. He is said to have introduced the cult of the healing god Asclepius into Athens and to have been honored after his own death as the cult hero Dexion. The Asclepius cult came to Athens as a result of the terrible suffering of the great plague in the early years of the Peloponnesian War, and Sophocles' interest in the moral and psychological affects of illness are visible in many of his dramas, but most notably Oedipus the King, probably produced shortly after the plague.

Of the three most famous fifth-century tragic playwrights, Sophocles seems to have been by far the most successful in his own time. Sophocles won the City Dionysia the first time he entered, in 468 B.C.E., and, by the lowest count, he won more victories in the City Dionysia (18 victories) than did Aeschylus (12) Euripides (4) combined. In the next century, Aristotle, focusing on Sophocles' mastery of literary form, declared Oedipus the King the finest tragedy, and his view of tragedy, which emphasizes the importance of a strong central character, largely reflects Sophocles' conception of Greek drama. Later in antiquity, Euripides became the most popular playwright. Sophocles' plays are notoriously difficult to date, and scholars assign production dates of some plays to a span of twenty years. As with Aeschylus, we have no plays from the early part of his career; he was over fifty years old when he wrote Antigone and around seventy at Oedipus the King. One tale from antiquity holds that, near the end of his life, Sophocles' relatives tried to have him declared senile and Sophocles answered by reading in court a passage from his unproduced Oedipus at Colonus. The jury, the story goes, sided enthusiastically with Sophocles. I should add that we know very little about the grounds for awarding prizes in the competition; it is possible that the decisions were sometimes as irrational as at the Academy Awards, or that the personal popularity of the playwright could affect the judges' aesthetic decisions.

Despite his reputation for conservatism, Sophocles was an extraordinarily innovative artist. He is said to have introduced the third speaking actor to the Greek theater sometime around 460; Aeschylus did not use a third actor until the Oresteia in 458. Sophocles also increased chorus from 12 to 15 members, wrote a treatise (now lost) on the use of the chorus in drama, and enhanced the role of scene painting. Sophocles also was the first playwright not to act in his own plays, owing to the weakness of his voice; remember, Greek drama was performed outdoors before 16,000 people, so a strong voice was essential for an actor. He is also said to have commented on his peers. He remarked that Aeschylus did the right thing in drama without knowing what he was doing, and, comparing himself to Euripides, he commented, "I portray men as they ought to be, Euripides as they are." While Sophocles himself was heavily influenced by Aeschylus early in his career he came to influence the old Aeschylus, and his rivalry with Euripides was both productive and friendly; when news reached Athens during the City Dionysia of the exiled Euripides' death, Sophocles dressed his chorus in the black robes of mourning. These reports, like most matters of ancient biography, may not be true, but they do at least in part ring true.