Suda s.v. Sophocles(ς 815 Adler)
M = reading of the whole MS tradition
m = reading of part of the MS tradition
P = reading on a papyrus
m = reading of part of the MS tradition
P = reading on a papyrus
Σοφοκλῆς, Σωφίλου, Κολωνῆθεν, Ἀθηναῖος, τραγικός, τεχθεὶς κατὰ τὴν ογ΄ Ὀλυμπιάδα, ὡς πρεσβύτερος εἶναι Σωκράτους ἔτη ιζ΄. οὗτος πρῶτος τρισὶν ἐχρήσατο ὑποκριταῖς καὶ τῶι καλουμένωι τριταγωνιστῆι, καὶ πρῶτος τὸν χορὸν ἐκ πεντεκαίδεκα εἰσήγαγε νέων νέων M: νέος ὤν Volkmann: ἀνδρῶν/νέον Daub: προσώπων Dindorf: συγκείμενον Usener, πρότερον δυοκαίδεκα εἰσιόντων. προσηγορεύθη δὲ Μέλιττα διὰ τὸ γλυκύ. καὶ αὐτὸς ἦρξε τοῦ δρᾶμα πρὸς δρᾶμα ἀγωνίζεσθαι, ἀλλὰ μὴ στρατολογεῖσθαι στρατολογεῖσθαι m: στρατολογία m, στρατολογίαν m: τετραλογίαν Scaliger, Meursius: διὰ τετραλογίαν / τετραλογεῖσθαι Naeke. καὶ ἔγραψεν ἐλεγείαν τε καὶ παιᾶνας καὶ λόγον καταλογάδην περὶ τοῦ χοροῦ, πρὸς Θέσπιν καὶ Χοιρίλον ἀγωνιζόμενος. παῖδας δὲ οὓς ἔσχεν οὗτοι· Ἰοφῶν, Λεωσθένης, Ἀρίστων, Στέφανος, Μενεκλείδης. τελευτᾶι δὲ μετὰ Εὐριπίδην ϙ΄. ἐδίδαξε δὲ δράματα ρκγ΄, ὡς δέ τινες καὶ πολλῶι πλείω. νίκας δὲ ἔλαβε κδ΄.
Sophocles, son of Sophilus, from the deme of Colonus, an Athenian tragic poet, born in the 73rd Olympiad (488/5 BCE), so that he was 17 years older than Socrates. He was the first to use three actors and the so-called tritagonist, and he was the first to introduce a chorus of fifteen young men, there having previously been twelve chorus members. He was called ‘the bee’ on account of his sweetness. He himself started the custom of pitting one drama against another, rather than competing by general levy, as it were. He wrote an elegy and paeans and a prose tract on the chorus, in which he takes issue with Thespis and Choirilus. He had the following children: Iophon, Leosthenes, Ariston, Stephanus, Menecleides. He died after Euripides, aged ninety. He produced one hundred and twenty three dramas; as some say, many more. He won twenty four victories.
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