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A Proskenion is a raised platform of a Hellenistic theatre. This is called a skene where the actors preform.

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He was from Icaria, was the first person ever to appear on stage as an actor playing a character in a play

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Skene, (from Greek skēnē, “scene-building”), in ancient Greek theatre, a building behind the playing area that was originally a hut for the changing of masks and costumes but eventually became the background before which the drama was enacted.

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Skene: Skene, (from Greek skēnē, "scene-building"), in ancient Greek theatre, a building behind the playing area that was originally a hut for the changing of masks and costumes but eventually became the background before which the drama was enacted. First used c. 465 bc, the skene was originally a small

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A theatron was a place where spectators were gathered to watch some kind of show or play. It was used for staging dramatic plays such as tragedies or comedies. In the Greek language, the word "theatro" meant theater.

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In Ancient Greek, theatron (θέατρον, pl. θέατρα) was a place where spectators were gathered to watch some kind of show or play. The word itself is derived from the verb θεάομαι ‎(theáomai, "I view").

Initially theatres were temporary wooden constructions, but as dramatic plays became increasingly popular, later venues were made of stone or even marble.

A theatron was mostly used for staging dramatic plays such as tragedies or comedies and the various cities would often organise theatrical competitions as part of various religious festivals, for example Dionysia in Athens.

Theatres were also used as places were each cities assembly could gather. For example, Athenians at some point moved the site of their assembly from Pnyx to the theatre of Dionysus.

In later times, during the Roman era, theatres were also used for cruder performances normally reserved for the amphitheatres.

In modern Greek, the word theatro ( θέατρο) has the same meanings as theatre; literally the place were a theatrical play is staged, but figuratively also has other meanings such as the audience within a theatre, the dramatic art itself etc. It is also used in expressions such as theater of war.

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In Greek, what is the meaning of "theatron"?

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Answer (1 of 2): In Ancient Greek, theatron (θέατρον, pl. θέατρα) was a place where spectators were gathered to watch some kind of show or play. The word itself is derived from the verb θεάομαι ‎(theáomai, "I view"). Initially theatres were temporary wooden constructions, but as dramatic plays b...

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Platform in the orchestra, next to the altar of Dionysus, both platform and altar referred to as the thymelê; it is suggested that the leader of the chorus used the thymele as a platform during dialogues between the chorus leader (koryphaios) and the chorus.

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Greek - Roman Theatre Glossary (Ancient Theatre Archive Project)

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steps, the columns, and the . These three elements in turn have three parts: three steps (uppermost being thestylobate), three parts to a column (normally thebase, shaft, and capital), and three parts to anentablature (an architrave, a frieze, and a cornice). These architectural elements are further classified by their particular style of design (Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian).

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It is an entrance affording access either to the stage (for actors) or to the orchestra (for the chorus) of the ancient Greek theater. The parodoi are distinguished from the entrances to the stage from the skene, or stage building.

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the first choral passage in an ancient Greek drama recited or sung as the chorus enters the orchestra; a passage in an ancient Greek theater between auditorium and skene by which spectators had access to the theater and actors might come and go during a play... See the full definition

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Aeschylus, the first of classical Athens' great dramatists, who raised the emerging art of tragedy to great heights of poetry and theatrical power.

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Aeschylus, (born 525/524 bc-died 456/455 bc, Gela, Sicily), the first of classical Athens' great dramatists, who raised the emerging art of tragedy to great heights of poetry and theatrical power.

Life and career

Aeschylus grew up in the turbulent period when the Athenian democracy, having thrown off its tyranny (the absolute rule of one man), had to prove itself against both self-seeking politicians at home and invaders from abroad. Aeschylus himself took part in his city's first struggles against the invading Persians. Later Greek chroniclers believed that Aeschylus was 35 years old in 490 bc when he participated in the Battle of Marathon, in which the Athenians first repelled the Persians; if this is true it would place his birth in 525 bc. Aeschylus' father's name was Euphorion, and the family probably lived at Eleusis (west of Athens).

Aeschylus was a notable participant in Athens' major dramatic competition, the Great Dionysia, which was a part of the festival of Dionysus. Every year at this festival, each of three dramatists would produce three tragedies, which either could be unconnected in plot sequence or could have a connecting theme. This trilogy was followed by a satyr play, which was a kind of lighthearted burlesque. Aeschylus is recorded as having participated in this competition, probably for the first time, in 499 bc. He won his first victory in the theatre in the spring of 484 bc. In the meantime, he had fought and possibly been wounded at Marathon, and Aeschylus singled out his participation in this battle years later for mention on the verse epitaph he wrote for himself. Aeschylus' brother was killed in this battle. In 480 the Persians again invaded Greece, and once again Aeschylus saw service, fighting at the battles of Artemisium and Salamis. His responses to the Persian invasion found expression in his play Persians, the earliest of his works to survive. This play was produced in the competition of the spring of 472 bc and won first prize.

Around this time Aeschylus is said to have visited Sicily to present Persians again at the tyrant Hieron I's court in Syracuse. Aeschylus' later career is a record of sustained dramatic success, though he is said to have suffered one memorable defeat, at the hands of the novice Sophocles, whose entry at the Dionysian festival of 468 bc was victorious over the older poet's entry. Aeschylus recouped the loss with victory in the next year, 467, with his Oedipus trilogy (of which the third play, Seven Against Thebes, survives). After producing the masterpiece among his extant works, the Oresteia trilogy, in 458, Aeschylus went to Sicily again. The chronographers recorded Aeschylus' death at Gela (on Sicily's south coast) in 456/455, aged 69. A ludicrous story that he was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald pate was presumably fabricated by a later comic writer. At Gela he was accorded a public funeral, with sacrifices and dramatic performances held at his grave, which subsequently became a place of pilgrimage for writers.

Aeschylus wrote approximately 90 plays, including satyr plays as well as tragedies; of these, about 80 titles are known. Only seven tragedies have survived entire. One account, perhaps based on the official lists, assigns Aeschylus 13 first prizes, or victories; this would mean that well over half of his plays won, since sets of four plays rather than separate ones were judged. According to the philosopher Flavius Philostratus, Aeschylus was known as the "Father of Tragedy." Aeschylus' two sons also achieved prominence as tragedians. One of them, Euphorion, won first prize in his own right in 431 bc over Sophocles and Euripides.

Dramatic and literary achievements

Aeschylus' influence on the development of tragedy was fundamental. Previous to him, Greek drama was limited to one actor (who became known as the protagonist, meaning first actor, once others were added) and a chorus engaged in a largely static recitation. (The chorus was a group of actors who responded to and commented on the main action of a play with song, dance, and recitation.) The actor could assume different roles by changing masks and costumes, but he was limited to engaging in dialogue only with the chorus. By adding a second actor (the deuteragonist, or second actor) with whom the first could converse, Aeschylus vastly increased the drama's possibilities for dialogue and dramatic tension and allowed more variety and freedom in plot construction. Although the dominance of the chorus in early tragedy is ultimately only hypothesis, it is probably true that, as Aristotle says in his Poetics, Aeschylus "reduced the chorus' role and made the plot the leading actor." Aeschylus was an innovator in other ways as well. He made good use of stage settings and stage machinery, and some of his works were noted for their spectacular scenic effects. He also designed costumes, trained his choruses in their songs and dances, and probably acted in most of his own plays, this being the usual practice among Greek dramatists.

But Aeschylus' formal innovations account for only part of his achievement. His plays are of lasting literary value in their majestic and compelling lyrical language, in the intricate architecture of their plots, and in the universal themes which they explore so honestly. Aeschylus' language in both dialogue and choral lyric is marked by force, majesty, and emotional intensity. He makes bold use of compound epithets, metaphors, and figurative turns of speech, but this rich language is firmly harnessed to the dramatic action rather than used as mere decoration. It is characteristic of Aeschylus to sustain an image or group of images throughout a play; the ship of state in Seven Against Thebes, the birds of prey in Suppliants, the snare in Agamemnon. More generally, Aeschylus deploys throughout a play or trilogy of plays several leading motifs that are often associated with a particular word or group of words. In the Oresteia, for example, such themes as wrath, mastery, persuasion, and the contrasts of light and darkness, of dirge and triumphal song, run throughout the trilogy. This sort of dramatic orchestration as applied to careful plot construction enabled Aeschylus to give Greek drama a more truly artistic and intellectual form.

Aeschylean tragedy deals with the plights, decisions, and fates of individuals with whom the destiny of the community or state is closely bound up; in turn, both individual and community stand in close relation to the gods. Personal, social, and religious issues are thus integrated, as they still were in the Greek civilization of the poet's time. Theodicy (i.e., the justifying of the gods' ways to men) was in some sense the concern of Aeschylus, though it might be truer to say that he aimed through dramatic conflict to throw light on the nature of divine justice. Aeschylus and his Greek contemporaries believed that the gods begrudged human greatness and sent infatuation on a man at the height of his success, thus bringing him to disaster. Man's infatuated act was frequently one of impiety or pride (), for which his downfall could be seen as a just punishment. In this scheme of things, divine jealousy and eternal justice formed the common fabric of a moral order of which Zeus, supreme among the gods, was the guardian.

But the unjust are not always punished in their lifetime; it is upon their descendants that justice may fall. It was this tradition of belief in a just Zeus and in hereditary guilt that Aeschylus received, and which is evinced in many of his plays. The simplest illustration of this is in Persians, in which Xerxes and his invading Persians are punished for their own offenses. But in a play such as Agamemnon, the issues of just punishment and moral responsibility, of human innocence and guilt, of individual freedom versus evil heredity and divine compulsion are more complex and less easily disentangled, thus presenting contradictions which still baffle the human intellect.

Finally, to Aeschylus, divine justice uses human motives to carry out its decrees. Chief among these motives is the desire for vengeance, which was basic to the ancient Greek scheme of values. In the one complete extant trilogy, the Oresteia, this notion of vengeance or retaliation is dominant. Retaliation is a motive of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Aegisthus, and Orestes. But significantly, the chain of retaliatory murder that pursues Agamemnon and his family ends not by a perfect balance of blood guilt, not by a further perpetuation of violence, but rather through reconciliation and the rule of law as established by Athena and the Athenian courts of justice.

Aeschylus is almost unequaled in writing tragedy that, for all its power of depicting evil and the fear and consequences of evil, ends, as in the Oresteia, in joy and reconciliation. Living at a time when the Greek people still truly felt themselves surrounded by the gods, Aeschylus nevertheless had a capacity for detached and general thought, which was typically Greek and which enabled him to treat the fundamental problem of evil with singular honesty and success.

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Aeschylus, (born 525/524 bc-died 456/455 bc, Gela, Sicily), the first of classical Athens' great dramatists, who raised the emerging art of tragedy to great heights of poetry and theatrical power. Aeschylus grew up in the turbulent period when the Athenian democracy, having thrown off its tyranny (the absolute rule of one man), had to prove itself against both self-seeking politicians at home and invaders from abroad.

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1. He was from Icaria, was the first person ever to appear on stage as an actor playing a character in a play. He was a singer of dithyrambs. He was the first actor in Greek Drama. He was often called the inventor of Tragedy.

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Thespis: Thespis, Greek poet, said to have been born in the deme (district) of Icaria. According to ancient tradition, Thespis was the first actor in Greek drama. He was often called the inventor of tragedy, and his name was recorded as the first to stage a tragedy at the Great (or City) Dionysia (c.

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Religious festivals in honor of Dionysus - Barrett Hebert 

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Religious festivals in honor of Dionysus - Barrett Hebert 

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Origin of Tragedy Religious festivals in honor of Dionysus Greek tragedy originated in religious festivals in honor of Dionysus, the god of wine and fertility. Dionysus died each winter but was reborn each spring.

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greek drama. origin of tragedy religious festivals in honor of dionysus greek tragedy originated in religious festivals in honor of dionysus

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Greek Drama. Origin of Tragedy Religious festivals in honor of Dionysus Greek tragedy originated in religious festivals in honor of Dionysus, the god. - ppt download

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The circular space used by the chorus in front of the proscenium in an ancient Greek theater. A corresponding semicircular space in a Roman theater used for seating important persons.

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The modern proscenium theater has its historical origins in the classic Greek civilization. Fortunately for us, archaeological remains and the documents related to many of the Greek theaters are intact and well worth visiting.

Seating at the Greek Theater at Ephesus

Some ancient Greek theaters, like the one at Ephesus (diameter 475 feet, height 100 feet), are still used for concerts because of their superior acoustics. During the Hellenistic period, Lysimachus, king of Ephesus and one of the successors of Alexander the Great (the diadochs), is believed to have constructed the original theater (at the start of the third century BCE).

The Theatron

The viewing area of a Greek theater is called the theatron, hence our word "theater" (theatre). Theater comes from a Greek word for viewing (the ceremonies).

Besides a design to allow crowds to see the performers, Greek theaters excelled in acoustics. The people up high on the hill could hear the words spoken far below. The word "audience" refers to the property of hearing.

What the Audience Sat On

The earliest Greeks who attended performances probably sat on the grass or stood on the hillside to watch the goings-on. Soon there were wooden benches. Later, the audience sat on benches cut from the rock of the hillside or made of stone. Some prestigious benches toward the bottom might be covered with marble or otherwise enhanced for priests and officials. (These front rows are sometimes called proedria.) The Roman seats of prestige were a few rows up, but they came later.

Viewing the Performances

Seats were arranged in curving (polygonal) tiers so that the people in the rows above could see the action in the orchestra and on stage without their vision being obscured by the people beneath them. The curve followed the shape of the orchestra, so where the orchestra was rectangular, as the first may have been, the seats facing the front would be rectilinear as well, with curves to the side. (Thorikos, Ikaria, and Rhamnus may have had rectangular orchestras.) This isn't too different from the seating in a modern auditorium-except for being outside.

Reaching the Upper Tiers

To get to the upper seats, there were stairs at regular intervals. This provided the wedge formation of the seats that is visible in ancient theaters.

The Orchestra and Skene in the Greek Theater

The Theater of Dionysus Eleuthereus in Athens is considered the prototype of all the later Greek theaters and the birthplace of Greek tragedy. Built in the sixth century BCE, it was part of a sanctuary dedicated to the Greek god of wine.

To the ancient Greeks, the orchestra did not refer to a group of musicians in the pit beneath the stage, musicians playing symphonies in orchestral halls, or an area for the audience.

The Orchestra and the Chorus

The orchestra would be a flat area and might be a circle or other shape with an altar ( thymele) in the center. It was the place where the chorus performed and danced, located in the hollow of a hill. The orchestra could be paved (as with marble) or it could simply be packed dirt. In the Greek theater, the audience did not sit in the orchestra.

Before the introduction of the stage building/tent (the skene), entrance into the orchestra was limited to ramps known as eisodoi to the left and right of the orchestra. Individually, on theater drawing plans, you will also see them marked as parados, which can be confusing because that is also the word for the first choral song in a tragedy.

The Skene and the Actors

The orchestra was in front of the auditorium. Behind the orchestra was the skene, if there was one. Didaskalia says the earliest extant tragedy that utilizes the skene was Aeschylus' Oresteia. Before c. 460, actors probably performed on the same level as the chorus-in the orchestra.

The skene was not originally a permanent building. When it was used, actors, but probably not the chorus, changed costumes and emerged from it through a few doors. Later, the flat-roofed wooden skene provided an elevated performance surface, like the modern stage. The proscenium was the columned wall in front of the skene. When gods spoke, they spoke from the theologion which was on the top of the proscenium.

The Orchestral Pit

At the ancient sanctuary of Delphi (home of the famous Oracle), the theater was first built in the fourth century BCE but was reconstructed several times, lastly in the second century CE.

When theaters like the Theater of Delphi were originally constructed, the performances were in the orchestra. When the skene-stage became the norm, the lower seats of the theatron were too low to see, so seats were removed so that the lowest, honored tiers, were only about five feet below the level of the stage, according to Roy Caston Flickinger's " The Greek Theater and Its Drama." This was also done to theaters at Ephesus and Pergamum, among others. Flickinger adds that this alteration of the theatron turned the orchestra into a pit with walls around it.

Theater of Epidauros

Built in 340 BCE as part of a sanctuary dedicated to the Greek God of medicine, Asclepius, the theatre of Epidauros, seated about 13,000 people in 55 tiers of seats. The second century CE travel writer Pausanias thought highly of the Theater of Epidauros (Epidaurus). He wrote:

"The Epidaurians have a theater within the sanctuary, in my opinion very well worth seeing. For while the Roman theaters are far superior to those anywhere else in their splendor, and the Arcadian theater at Megalopolis is unequalled for size, what architect could seriously rival Polycleitus in symmetry and beauty? For it was Polycleitus who built both this theater and the circular building."

The Theater of Miletus

Located in the ancient region of Ionia, on the western coast of Turkey near the city of Didim, Miletus was built in the Doric style in about 300 BCE. The theater was expanded during the Roman Period and increased its seating, going from 5,300 to 25,000 spectators.

Theatre of Fourvière

Theatre of Fourvière is a Roman theater, built at the behest of Caesar Augustus in Lugdunum (modern Lyon, France) in about 15 BCE. It is the first theater built in France. As its name indicates, it was built on the Fourvière Hill.

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The modern proscenium theater has its historical origins in the classic Greek civilization. Fortunately for us, archaeological remains and the documents related to many of the Greek theaters are intact and well worth visiting. Some ancient Greek theaters, like the one at Ephesus (diameter 475 feet, height 100 feet), are still used for concerts because of their superior acoustics.

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Sophocles is one of the three ancient greek tragedians. His contemporary plays actually survived. He wrote 120 plays but only 7 were remembered. His most famous play was the Antigone.

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Sophocles (; Greek: Σοφοκλῆς Sophoklēs, pronounced [so.pʰo.klɛ̂ːs]; c. 497/6 - winter 406/5 BC) is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than or contemporary with those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides. Sophocles wrote over 120 plays during the course of his life, but only seven have survived in a complete form: , , Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, , Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus. For almost 50 years, Sophocles was the most celebrated playwright in the dramatic competitions of the city-state of Athens that took place during the religious festivals of the Lenaea and the Dionysia. He competed in 30 competitions, won 24, and was never judged lower than second place. Aeschylus won 13 competitions, and was sometimes defeated by Sophocles, while Euripides won four competitions.

The most famous tragedies of Sophocles feature Oedipus and also Antigone: they are generally known as the Theban plays, although each play was actually a part of a different tetralogy, the other members of which are now lost. Sophocles influenced the development of drama, most importantly by adding a third actor, thereby reducing the importance of the chorus in the presentation of the plot. He also developed his characters to a greater extent than earlier playwrights such as Aeschylus.

Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, was a wealthy member of the rural (small community) of Hippeios Colonus in Attica, which was to become a setting for one of his plays, and he was probably born there. Sophocles was born a few years before the Battle of Marathon in 490 BC: the exact year is unclear, although 497/6 is the most likely. Sophocles was born into a wealthy family (his father was an armour manufacturer) and was highly educated. Sophocles' first artistic triumph was in 468 BC, when he took first prize in the Dionysia theatre competition over the reigning master of Athenian drama, Aeschylus. According to Plutarch, the victory came under unusual circumstances. Instead of following the usual custom of choosing judges by lot, the archon asked Cimon and the other present to decide the victor of the contest. Plutarch further contends that following this loss Aeschylus soon left for Sicily. Although Plutarch says that this was Sophocles' first production, it is now thought that his first production was probably in 470 BC. Triptolemus was probably one of the plays that Sophocles presented at this festival.

In 480 BC Sophocles was chosen to lead the paean (a choral chant to a god), celebrating the Greek victory over the Persians at the Battle of Salamis. Early in his career, the politician Cimon might have been one of his patrons, although if he was, there was no ill will borne by Pericles, Cimon's rival, when Cimon was ostracized in 461 BC. In 443/2 he served as one of the Hellenotamiai, or treasurers of Athena, helping to manage the finances of the city during the political ascendancy of Pericles. According to the Vita Sophoclis, in 441 BC he was elected one of the ten generals, executive officials at Athens, as a junior colleague of Pericles, and he served in the Athenian campaign against Samos; he was supposed to have been elected to this position as the result of his production of Antigone.

In 420 BC, he welcomed and set up an altar for the image of Asclepius at his house, when the deity was introduced to Athens. For this, he was given the posthumous epithet Dexion (receiver) by the Athenians. He was also elected, in 413 BC, one of the commissioners () who responded to the catastrophic destruction of the Athenian expeditionary force in Sicily during the Peloponnesian War.

Sophocles died at the age of ninety or ninety-one in the winter of 406/5 BC, having seen within his lifetime both the Greek triumph in the Persian Wars and the bloodletting of the Peloponnesian War. As with many famous men in classical antiquity, his death inspired a number of apocryphal stories. The most famous is the suggestion that he died from the strain of trying to recite a long sentence from his Antigone without pausing to take a breath. Another account suggests he choked while eating grapes at the Anthesteria festival in Athens. A third holds that he died of happiness after winning his final victory at the City Dionysia. A few months later, a comic poet, in a play titled The Muses, wrote this eulogy: "Blessed is Sophocles, who had a long life, was a man both happy and talented, and the writer of many good tragedies; and he ended his life well without suffering any misfortune." According to some accounts, however, his own sons tried to have him declared incompetent near the end of his life; he is said to have refuted their charge in court by reading from his as yet unproduced Oedipus at Colonus. One of his sons, Iophon, and a grandson, also called Sophocles, also became playwrights.

An ancient source, Athenaeus's work Sophists at Dinner, contains references to Sophocles' homosexuality or bisexuality. In that work, a character named Myrtilus, in a lengthy banquet speech claims that Ion of Chios writes in his book Encounters, that Sophocles loved boys as much as Euripides loved women. Myrtilus also repeats an anecdote reportedly told by Ion of Chios that involves Sophocles flirting with a serving boy at a symposium. Myrtilus also claims that in a work by Hieronymus of Rhodes entitled Historical Notes it is said that Sophocles once lured a boy outside to have sex, and afterwards the boy left with Sophocles' cape, while the boy's own cape was left with Sophocles.

Among Sophocles' earliest innovations was the addition of a third actor, which further reduced the role of the chorus and created greater opportunity for character development and conflict between characters. Aeschylus, who dominated Athenian playwriting during Sophocles' early career, followed suit and adopted the third character into his own work towards the end of his life. Aristotle credits Sophocles with the introduction of skenographia, or scenery-painting. It was not until after the death of the old master Aeschylus in 456 BC that Sophocles became the pre-eminent playwright in Athens.

Thereafter, Sophocles emerged victorious in dramatic competitions at 18 Dionysia and 6 Lenaia festivals. In addition to innovations in dramatic structure, Sophocles' work is also known for its deeper development of characters than earlier playwrights. His reputation was such that foreign rulers invited him to attend their courts, although unlike Aeschylus who died in Sicily, or Euripides who spent time in Macedon, Sophocles never accepted any of these invitations. Aristotle used Sophocles' Oedipus Rex in his (c. 335 BC) as an example of the highest achievement in tragedy, which suggests the high esteem in which his work was held by later Greeks.

Only two of the seven surviving plays can be dated securely: Philoctetes (409 BC) and Oedipus at Colonus (401 BC, staged after Sophocles' death by his grandson). Of the others, shows stylistic similarities to these two plays, which suggests that it was probably written in the latter part of his career. , and The Trachiniae are generally thought to be among his early works, again based on stylistic elements, with Oedipus Rex coming in Sophocles' middle period. Most of Sophocles' plays show an undercurrent of early fatalism and the beginnings of Socratic logic as a mainstay for the long tradition of Greek tragedy.

The Theban plays consist of three plays: Oedipus Rex (also called Oedipus Tyrannus or Oedipus the King), Oedipus at Colonus and . All three plays concern the fate of Thebes during and after the reign of King Oedipus. They have often been published under a single cover. Sophocles, however, wrote the three plays for separate festival competitions, many years apart. Not only are the Theban plays not a true trilogy (three plays presented as a continuous narrative) but they are not even an intentional series and contain some inconsistencies among them. He also wrote other plays having to do with Thebes, such as the , of which only fragments have survived.

Each of the plays relates to the tale of the mythological Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother without knowledge that they were his parents. His family is fated to be doomed for three generations.

In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus is the protagonist. Oedipus' infanticide is planned by his parents, Laius and Jocasta, to avert him from fulfilling a prophecy; in truth, the servant entrusted with the infanticide passes the infant on through a series of intermediaries to a childless couple, who adopt him not knowing his history. Oedipus eventually learns of the Delphic Oracle's prophecy of him, that he would kill his father and marry his mother; Oedipus attempts to flee his fate without harming those he knows as his parents (at this point, he does not know that he is adopted). Oedipus meets a man at a crossroads accompanied by servants; Oedipus and the man fight, and Oedipus kills the man (who was his father, Laius, although neither knew at the time). He becomes the ruler of Thebes after solving the riddle of the Sphinx and in the process, marries the widowed queen, his mother Jocasta. Thus the stage is set for horror. When the truth comes out, following from another true but confusing prophecy from Delphi, Jocasta commits suicide, Oedipus blinds himself and leaves Thebes. At the end of the play, order is restored. This restoration is seen when Creon, brother of Jocasta, becomes king, and also when Oedipus, before going off to exile, asks Creon to take care of his children. Oedipus's children will always bear the weight of shame and humiliation because of their father's actions.

In Oedipus at Colonus, the banished Oedipus and his daughter Antigone arrive at the town of Colonus where they encounter Theseus, King of Athens. Oedipus dies and strife begins between his sons Polyneices and Eteocles.

In Antigone, the protagonist is Oedipus' daughter, Antigone. She is faced with the choice of allowing her brother Polyneices' body to remain unburied, outside the city walls, exposed to the ravages of wild animals, or to bury him and face death. The king of the land, Creon, has forbidden the burial of Polyneices for he was a traitor to the city. Antigone decides to bury his body and face the consequences of her actions. Creon sentences her to death. Eventually, Creon is convinced to free Antigone from her punishment, but his decision comes too late and Antigone commits suicide. Her suicide triggers the suicide of two others close to King Creon: his son, Haemon, who was to wed Antigone, and his wife, Eurydice, who commits suicide after losing her only surviving son.

Composition and inconsistencies

The plays were written across thirty-six years of Sophocles' career and were not composed in chronological order, but instead were written in the order , Oedipus Rex, and Oedipus at Colonus. Nor were they composed as a trilogy - a group of plays to be performed together, but are the remaining parts of three different groups of plays. As a result, there are some inconsistencies: notably, Creon is the undisputed king at the end of Oedipus Rex and, in consultation with Apollo, single-handedly makes the decision to expel Oedipus from Thebes. Creon is also instructed to look after Oedipus' daughters Antigone and Ismene at the end of Oedipus Rex. By contrast, in the other plays there is some struggle with Oedipus' sons Eteocles and Polynices in regard to the succession. In Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles attempts to work these inconsistencies into a coherent whole: Ismene explains that, in light of their tainted family lineage, her brothers were at first willing to cede the throne to Creon. Nevertheless, they eventually decided to take charge of the monarchy, with each brother disputing the other's right to succeed. In addition to being in a clearly more powerful position in Oedipus at Colonus, Eteocles and Polynices are also culpable: they consent (l. 429, Theodoridis, tr.) to their father's going to exile, which is one of his bitterest charges against them.

In addition to the three Theban plays, there are four surviving plays by Sophocles: , Women of Trachis, , and Philoctetes, the last of which won first prize in 409 BC in which it competed.

Ajax focuses on the proud hero of the Trojan War, Telamonian Ajax, who is driven to treachery and eventually suicide. Ajax becomes gravely upset when Achilles' armor is presented to Odysseus instead of himself. Despite their enmity toward him, Odysseus persuades the kings Menelaus and Agamemnon to grant Ajax a proper burial.

The Women of Trachis (named for the Trachinian women who make up the chorus) dramatizes Deianeira's accidentally killing Heracles after he had completed his famous twelve labors. Tricked into thinking it is a love charm, Deianeira applies poison to an article of Heracles' clothing; this poisoned robe causes Heracles to die an excruciating death. Upon learning the truth, Deianeira commits suicide.

Electra corresponds roughly to the plot of Aeschylus' Libation Bearers. It details how Electra and Orestes' avenge their father Agamemnon's murder by Clytemnestra and Aegisthus.

Philoctetes retells the story of Philoctetes, an archer who had been abandoned on Lemnos by the rest of the Greek fleet while on the way to Troy. After learning that they cannot win the Trojan War without Philoctetes' bow, the Greeks send Odysseus and Neoptolemus to retrieve him; due to the Greeks' earlier treachery, however, Philoctetes refuses to rejoin the army. It is only Heracles' deus ex machina appearance that persuades Philoctetes to go to Troy.

Although the list of over 120 titles of plays associated with Sophocles are known and presented below, little is known of the precise dating of most of them. Philoctetes is known to have been written in 409 BC, and Oedipus at Colonus is known to have only been performed in 401 BC, posthumously, at the initiation of Sophocles' grandson. The convention on writing plays for the Greek festivals was to submit them in tetralogies of three tragedies along with one satyr play. Along with the unknown dating of the vast majority of over 120 play titles, it is also largely unknown how the plays were grouped. It is, however, known that the three plays referred to in the modern era as the "Theban plays" were never performed together in Sophocles' own lifetime, and are therefore not a trilogy (which they are sometimes erroneously seen as).

Fragments of ( Tracking Satyrs) were discovered in Egypt in 1907. These amount to about half of the play, making it the best preserved satyr play after Euripides' , which survives in its entirety. Fragments of the were discovered in April 2005 by classicists at Oxford University with the help of infrared technology previously used for satellite imaging. The tragedy tells the story of the second siege of Thebes. A number of other Sophoclean works have survived only in fragments, including:

Sophocles' view of his own work

There is a passage of Plutarch's tract De Profectibus in Virtute 7 in which Sophocles discusses his own growth as a writer. A likely source of this material for Plutarch was the Epidemiae of Ion of Chios, a book that recorded many conversations of Sophocles. This book is a likely candidate to have contained Sophocles' discourse on his own development because Ion was a friend of Sophocles, and the book is known to have been used by Plutarch. Though some interpretations of Plutarch's words suggest that Sophocles says that he imitated Aeschylus, the translation does not fit grammatically, nor does the interpretation that Sophocles said that he was making fun of Aeschylus' works. C. M. Bowra argues for the following translation of the line: "After practising to the full the bigness of Aeschylus, then the painful ingenuity of my own invention, now in the third stage I am changing to the kind of diction which is most expressive of character and best."

Here Sophocles says that he has completed a stage of Aeschylus' work, meaning that he went through a phase of imitating Aeschylus' style but is finished with that. Sophocles' opinion of Aeschylus was mixed. He certainly respected him enough to imitate his work early on in his career, but he had reservations about Aeschylus' style, and thus did not keep his imitation up. Sophocles' first stage, in which he imitated Aeschylus, is marked by "Aeschylean pomp in the language". Sophocles' second stage was entirely his own. He introduced new ways of evoking feeling out of an audience, as in his Ajax, when Ajax is mocked by Athene, then the stage is emptied so that he may commit suicide alone. Sophocles mentions a third stage, distinct from the other two, in his discussion of his development. The third stage pays more heed to diction. His characters spoke in a way that was more natural to them and more expressive of their individual character feelings.

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Sophocles (; Greek: Σοφοκλῆς Sophoklēs, pronounced [so.pʰo.klɛ̂ːs]; c. 497/6 - winter 406/5 BC) is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than or contemporary with those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides.

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Euripides' questioning attitude toward traditional Greek Religion is reflected in some of his plays. The ancients knew of 92 plays composed by Euripides. At four festivals he received first prize.

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Euripides | Ancient Greek Tragedy & Plays

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Euripides was the last of classical Athens’s three great tragic dramatists, following Aeschylus and Sophocles. It is possible to reconstruct only the sketchiest biography of Euripides. His mother’s name was Cleito; his father’s name was Mnesarchus or Mnesarchides. One tradition states that his