Sophocles

Sophocles (about 497–406 BC) was an Athenian tragic dramatist, born at Colonus near the city. He won his first victory at the dramatic festival in 468, defeating Aeschylus, and took first prize some eighteen more times over sixty years, never finishing lower than second. He also served Athens as treasurer, general and commissioner, and was a friend of Pericles and Herodotus. Of more than 120 plays, seven survive: Ajax, Antigone, The Women of Trachis, Oedipus the King, Electra, Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus, the last produced after his death. Aristotle took Oedipus as the model tragedy.