§ 1  Sophocles was an Athenian, son of Sophillos who was not, as Aristoxenos says, a carpenter or bronze smith or, as Istros claims, a manufacturer of knives and swords by trade, but Sophillos owned slaves who were bronze smiths or carpenters. It was not likely that someone born of such a father would be thought worthy of a generalship with Pericles or Thucydides, the first men of the polis. Sophocles would not have been left unscathed by the poets and free of their abuse, [had he been of low birth], seeing how they did not restrain from attacking Themistocles. Istros must not be believed when he says that Sophocles was not an Athenian but a Phliasian. Even supposing that his origin was Phliasian, it is not possible to find this claim in anyone else except Istros. Sophocles was an Athenian, from the deme Kolonos, distinguished for his life and his accomplishments. He was well educated, raised amid prosperity, and proven in the exercise of his citizenship and embassies.

§ 2  They say that Sophocles was born in the second year of the seventy-first Olympiad in the archonship of Philippos at Athens. [495/4] He was seven years younger than Aeschylus and twenty-four years older than Euripides.

§ 3  Sophocles applied himself among the boys in the palaestra and in the study of music and, according to Istros, received crowns in both. He was educated in music by Lampros. After the naval battle at Salamis, while the Athenians were at the victory monument, he, naked and anointed with oil, led the victory songs for those singing the paean, while accompanying himself on the lyre.

§ 4  Sophocles learned tragedy from Aeschylus. He introduced many innovations in the contests. He was first to separate the role of actor from that of poet on account of his weak voice, for in olden times, the poet himself performed as actor. He increased the number of choristers from twelve to fifteen and invented the third actor.

§ 5  They say that he took up the cithara and played in Thamyras alone, and that, for this reason, he was painted with a cithara in the Stoa Poikile.

§ 6  Satyros says that he designed the crooked staff himself, while according to Istros, he invented white boots that the actors and choristers wore, and that he wrote plays with a view to the nature of the actors and that he organized a thiasos for the Muses from cultivated people.

§ 7  Simply put, there was such charm to his personality that he was beloved everywhere by everyone.

§ 8  He won twenty victories, as Karystios says, and frequently took second place but never third.

§ 9  Athenians elected him general in his sixty-fifth year (in the seventh year before the Peloponnesian War) in the war against the Anaians.

§ 10  Sophocles was such a lover of Athens that, although many kings summoned him, he was unwilling to leave his fatherland.

§ 11  Sophocles also held the priesthood of Halon, a hero who with Asklepios at the side of Cheiron . . . founded after his father’s death by his son Iophon.

§ 12  Sophocles was devout as no other, as Hieronymos says about the episode of the golden crown. After the crown was stolen from the Acropolis, Herakles appeared to Sophocles in a dream, telling him to look for an unoccupied house on his right as he was walking where the crown had been hidden. He revealed the crown to the demos and received a talent, the reward decreed before this event. He took the talent and founded a shrine for Herakles Menytes (the Denouncer).

§ 13  The law-suit against his son Iophon is reported by many. Sophocles had a son, Iophon, by Nikostrate, and another, Ariston, by Theoris of Sikyon. Sophocles particularly loved the son of Ariston, also called Sophocles. At one point he portrayed Iophon in a play as envying him and bringing an action against him before the phratry brothers for mental incompetence due to old age. Some of the brothers fined Iophon. Satyros says that Sophocles said, “If I am Sophocles, I am not incompetent. If I am incompetent, I am not Sophocles,” and then he read from the Oedipus.

§ 14  Istros and Neanthes say that Sophocles died in this way: Kallippides, an actor, coming from work in Opous around the time of the Festival of the Choes, sent him a cluster of grapes. Sophocles put an unripe grape in his mouth and choked because of old age and died. Satyros says that he was reading Antigone and coming upon a long passage near the end that did not have a break or a comma to make a pause, he stretched out word after word and lost his life. Others say that after a reading of the play, when he was announced the victor, he “left,” overcome with joy.

§ 15  Sophocles was placed in the paternal tomb which lies along the road to Dekeleia eleven stades from the city wall. Some say that they put a siren on his tomb, others, a bronze swallow. Since the Lacedaemonians had fortified the place against the Athenians, Dionysus appeared to Lysander in a dream and ordered him to allow the man to be placed in the tomb. Lysander paid no attention to the dream. Dionysus appeared to him a second time and issued the same order. Lysander inquired from runaways who it was who died, and when he learned that it was Sophocles, he sent a herald and gave permission for the burying of the man.

§ 16  Lobon says that the following is written on the tomb:
I hide with this tomb Sophocles who took first place in the tragic arts, a most august figure.

§ 17  Istros says that the Athenians passed a decree to offer sacrifice to Sophocles annually because of his virtue.

§ 18   He has, as Aristophanes says, 130 plays of which 17 are spurious.

§ 19  He competed against Aeschylus, Euripides, Choirilos, Aristias, and many others, including his son Iophon.

§ 20   He generally used the language of Homer and fashioned his plots in the footsteps of that poet. In many of his plays, he drew upon the Odyssey. He gives the etymology of the name Odysseus in the Homeric way: Rightly for my sufferings am I called Odysseus, for many unfriendly men have caused me pain. He delineated characters, embellished diction, and skillfully introduced solutions external to the plot, attaining the charm of Homer. From this a certain Ionian said that only Sophocles was Homer’s student. Many others imitated one of their predecessors or contemporaries, but only Sophocles plucked the brilliance from each. For this he was said to be the Bee. He combined various elements, timing, sweetness, daring, and variety.

§ 21  He knew how to proportion timing and events so that from a small half-line or a single speech, he constructed a whole character. This is the most important aspect of the poet’s art, namely, to reveal character or suffering.

§ 22  Aristophanes says that “a honey comb sat on him” and “Sophocles was anointed on the mouth with honey.”

§ 23  Aristoxenos says that he was the first of poets from Athens to introduce Phrygian melody into his songs and mix in the dithyrambic style.