Sophocles

Sophocles was born around 496 BC in Colonus, a village just outside Athens, and lived to about ninety. His life spanned nearly the whole golden age of his city, and he thrived in it. As a young man he was chosen to lead a victory chant after the Battle of Salamis, the naval battle in which Athens turned back a Persian invasion. As a playwright he entered Athens' great drama competitions for decades and won more first prizes than any rival, beating even the older master Aeschylus. He also served Athens directly, as a treasurer and later as a general, because Athenians expected their leading citizens to take public office. He wrote over 120 plays, though only seven survive complete. Among them are Oedipus Rex and Antigone. The first is about a king who hunts a hidden criminal and discovers the criminal is himself. The second follows a young woman who defies a royal decree to bury her dead brother, because Greeks believed the dead had a sacred right to burial. Sophocles matters because he put the human choice at the center. His characters are not crushed by fate at random; they suffer because of who they are, which is why their pain still feels like ours.