Sophocles and AntigoneSophocles is an ancient Greek writer and philosopher, who wrote one of the greatest stories of all time, Antigone. It is also said that Sophocles was one of the greatest minds of the ancient world. This article is about Antigone, Sophocles' conquests and times. Sophocles was born around 496 BC at Colonus in Attica, near Athens and died in 406 BC. He lived in Athens' most brilliant intellectual period. Sophilus, his father, was a wealthy Athenian citizen and gave him a solid education in music, gymnastics and dance. He was well known for having a reputation for learning and aesthetic taste. He knew Homer and the Greek lyric poets well, and for his industriousness he was known as “the Attic bee” (Rexine 132). "Thanks to his youthful beauty, he was chosen to lead the choir in the Paen of Thanksgiving for the naval victory at Salamis in 480 BC" (Rexine 132)During his long life Sophocles held public office several times, partly thanks to his fame as a playwright and to his gentle qualities as a man. "In 440 BC he was appointed one of the generals in the war that Pericles led against Samos, and in 413 BC." (Magill, Kohler p# 1023) He was also one of the ten commissioners appointed, after the failure of the expedition to Sicily, to govern Athens. Pericles once told him "you know how to write poetry, but you certainly don't know how to command an army" (Internet)Sophocles first won first prize, in a competition with Aeschylus, in 468 BC at the age of twenty. eight. During his career he never won less than second prize and won first prize twenty times, more than any other Greek tragedian. Sophocles wrote more than 120 tragedies, of which only seven have survived. “Plutarch tells us that there were three periods in Sophocles' literary development: imitation of the great style of Aeschylus, use of an artificial and incisive style, and use of the best style and that most expressive of character. It is only from the third period that we have examples." (Rexine p#134)The seven tragedies that survive are Ajax 447 BC, Antigone 442/441 BC, Oedipus at Colonus 401 BC, Tracheniae 437-432 BC, Oedipus Rex 429 BC, Electra 418-414 BC..