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William Smith,
A Smaller History of Ancient Greece|
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CHAPTER XXII
Sketch of the History of Greek Literature from the Earliest Times to the Reign of Alexander the Great
Cf. A Short History of Greek Philosophy
Page 12
SOPHOCLES, the younger rival and immediate successor of Aeschylus in the tragic art, was born at Colonus, a village about a mile from Athens, in B.C. 495. We have already adverted to his wresting the tragic prize from AEschylus in 468, from which time he seems to have retained the almost undisputed possession of the Athenian stage, until a young but formidable rival arose in the person of Euripides. The close of his life was troubled with family dissensions. Iophon, his son by an Athenian wife, and therefore his legitimate heir, was jealous of the affection manifested by his father for his grandson Sophocles, the offspring of another son, Ariston, whom he had had by a Sicyonian woman. Fearing lest his father should bestow a great part of his property upon his favourite, Iophon summoned him before the Phratores, or tribesmen, on the ground that his mind was affected. The old man's only reply was--"If I am Sophocles I am not beside myself; and if I am beside myself I am not Sophocles." Then taking up his OEDIPUS AT COLONUS, which he had lately written, but had not yet brought out, he read from it a beautiful passage, with which the judges were so struck that they at once dismissed the case. He died shortly afterwards, in B.C. 406, in his 90th year. As a poet Sophocles is universally allowed to have brought the drama to the greatest perfection of which it is susceptible. His plays stand in the just medium between the sublime but unregulated flights of AEschylus, and the too familiar scenes and rhetorical declamations of Euripides. His plots are worked up with more skill and care than the plots of either of his great rivals. Sophocles added the last improvement to the form of the drama by the introduction of a third actor; a change which greatly enlarged the scope of the action. The improvement was so obvious that it was adopted by AEschylus in his later plays; but the number of three actors seems to have been seldom or never exceeded.
Back to the History of [Ancient] Greece Contents
The Greek Word Library * Cf. R. W. Livingstone, On the Ancient Greek Literature
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Reference address : https://ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-texts/ancient-greece/history-of-ancient-greece-22-literature.asp?pg=12
