Sophocles lived 496–406. In addition to his poetic activity, he held a minor, hereditary priesthood, and he was elected general, perhaps more than once. His first production was in 468 and we are told that he wrote about 120 plays during his career. He was victorious eighteen times with his plays at the Greater Dionysia (i.e. with seventy-two individual plays).

Antigone

Chorus (332–375)

This choral passage, often called the “Ode to Man,” follows a long speech by Creon in justification of his decree forbidding the burial of Polyneices on the grounds that he was a traitor to the city. Earlier Antigone had affirmed her intention to bury him. Creon asserts that the primary duty of a king is to uphold law and order in the city. In view of the tragic turn of events, there is undoubtedly irony in the optimistic view of the progress of human civilization expressed in this ode. Antigone was produced about 442, and the ode is one of the earliest surviving expressions of the progressive anthropology developed during the sophistic period. Compare Aeschylus' Prometheus (frs. 1–3), Protagoras' Myth (fr. 8), Euripides, fr. 4, Critias, fr. 5, and Democritus, fr. 1.