Sophocles
a Greek tragic poet; born in the Attic demus or village of Colonus, 495 в. c., 30 years later than critics that Sophocles carried the Greek drama to its highest perfection. He effected a complete change in the constitution of tragedy as Æschylus left it; loosening the connection between the parts of the trilogy and the satiric drama, and making them not one great poem, but four distinct ones; introducing a third actor; and for subjects selecting, not a series of heroic and mythical actions, but for each play one leading fact of real human interest and lasting significance.
Sophocles lived to be nearly 90, and in his latest years most probably wrote the "Ædipus at Colonus," so full of sweetness and tender melancholy, and consoling hopes, which was not presented on the stage till five years after the poet's death, 406 B. C.