SOPHOCLES (495-406 B.c.), Greek tragic poet, the son of Sophillus, was born at Colonus in the neighbourhood of Athens. The date assigned for the poet's birth is in accordance with the tale that young Sophocles, then a pupil of the musician Lamprus, was chosen to lead the chorus of boys in the celebration of the victory of Salamis (48o B.c.). • The time of his death is fixed by the allusions to it in the Frogs of Aristophanes and in the Muses, a lost play of Phrynichus, the comic poet, which were both pro duced in 405 B.C. Apart from tragic victories, the event of Sopho cles' life most fully authenticated is his appointment, at the age of 55, as one of the generals who served with Pericles in the Samian War B.C.). Conjecture has been rife as to the possibility of his here improving acquaintance with Herodotus, whom he probably met some years earlier at Athens. But the distich quoted by Plutarch— 'WO lipoSOry TEREP ZartoKXis ir&ov revripcovra is a slight ground on which to reject the stronger tradition, accord ing to which Herodotus was ere this established at Thurii. The fact of Sophocles' generalship is the less surprising if taken in connection with the interesting remark of his biographer (whose Life, though absent from the earliest ms. through some mischance, bears marks of an Alexandrian origin) that he took his full share of civic duties, and even served on foreign embassies. The large acquaintanceship which this implies, not only in Athens, but in Ionic cities generally, is a point of main importance in considering the opportunities of information at his command.
Other gossiping stories are hardly worth repeating—as that Peri cles rebuked his love of pleasure and thought him a bad general, though a good poet ; that he humorously boasted of his own "generalship" in affairs of love; or that he said of Aeschylus that he was often right without knowing it, and that Euripides repre sented men as they are, not as they ought to be. (This last anec dote has the authority of Aristotle.) And the story of his indict ment by his son, Iophon, for incompetence to manage his affairs— to which Cicero has given some weight by quoting it in the De senectute—appears to be really traceable to Satyrus (//. c. 200 B.C.), the same author who gave publicity to the most ridiculous of the various absurd accounts of the poet's death—that his breath failed him for want of a pause in reading some passage of the Antigone. Satyrus is at least the sole authority for the defence of the aged poet, who, after reciting passages from the Oed. Col., is supposed to have said to his accusers, "If I am Sophocles I am no dotard, and if I dote I am not Sophocles." There is a tradition that Sophocles, because of the weakness of his voice, was the first poet who desisted from acting in his own plays. Various minor improvements in decoration and stage car pentry are attributed to him. It is more interesting, if true, that he wrote his plays having certain actors in his eye ; that he formed an association for the promotion of liberal culture ; and that he was the first to introduce three actors on the stage. Tt is asserted on the authority of Aristoxenus that Sophocles was also the first to employ Phrygian melodies. Ancient critics had also noted his familiarity with Homer, especially with the Odyssey, his power of selection and of extracting an exquisite grace from all he touched (whence he was named the "Attic Bee"), his mingled felicity and boldness, and, above all, his subtle delineation of human nature and feeling.