Sophocles: The Renowned Athenian Playwright and Politician

• 496bc Born to a rich family in colons near Athens and so received a good education in music, dancing and athletics

• 480bc after the second invasion by Persia Sophocles celebrated by singing naked to the lyre

• 468bc Sophocles enters and wins the drama competition at the City Dionysia Festival, probably with the play Triptolemos, beating Aeschylus. This makes him instantly famous.

• Late 440s Sophocles presents the play Ajax.

• 443/2 Sophocles serves as Hellenotamias (treasurer of the Athenian Empire, the former Dalian League). His appointment reveals that he is a respected and politically active citizen.

• 442-40 His play, Antigone, wins first prize at the Dionysia. The popularity of the play means that Sophocles is elected General in the Samian War, serving alongside Pericles. Anecdotally he was not thought to be a good strategist.

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Its believed, he died either choking on an under-ripe grape pip or by running out of breath in the middle of a recitation of Antigone.

The Dionysia was the second most important Athenian festival and it honours the God Dionysus. It celebrated performance of tragedies and later comedies. It was also a religious festival. The festival was made of two parts: city and rural. It was this festival which Sophocles was most associated.

Greek theatre flourished though festivals like this for 700 years. It was then ‘lost’ in the middle ages only to be rediscovered in the Renaissance. But only 31 plays survive from this period, written by three playwrights: Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides.

• The City Dionysia took place in March at one side of the Acropolis in Athens and the timing may have coincided with the first tasting of the previous year’s