son, Ariston, whom he had had by a Sicyonian
woman. Fearing lest his father should bestow a great part of his
property upon his favourite, Iophon summoned him before the Phratores,
or tribesmen, on the ground that his mind was affected. The old man's
only reply was--"If I am Sophocles I am not beside myself; and if I am
beside myself I am not Sophocles." Then taking up his OEDIPUS AT
COLONUS, which he had lately written, but had not yet brought out, he
read from it a beautiful passage, with which the judges were so struck
that they at once dismissed the case. He died shortly afterwards, in
B.C. 406, in his 90th year. As a poet Sophocles is universally allowed
to have brought the drama to the greatest perfection of which it is
susceptible. His plays stand in the just medium between the sublime
but unregulated flights of AEschylus, and the too familiar scenes and
rhetorical declamations of Euripides. His plots are worked up with
more skill and care than the plots of either of his great rivals.
Sophocles added the last improvement to the form of the drama by the
introduction of a third actor; a change which greatly enlarged the
scope of the action. The improvement was so obvious that it was
adopted by AEschylus in his later plays; but the number of three actors
seems to have been seldom or never exceeded.

EURIPIDES was born in the island of Salamis, in B.C. 480 his parents
having been among those who fled thither at the time of the invasion of
Attics by Xerxes. He studied rhetoric under Prodicus, and physics
under Anaxagoras and he also lived on intimate terms with Socrates. In
441 he gained his first prize, and he continued to exhibit plays until
408, the date of his Orestes. Soon after this he repaired to the court
of Macedonia, at the invitation of king Archelaus, where he died two
years afterwards at the age of 74 (B.C. 406). Common report relates
that he was torn to pieces by the king's dogs, which, according to some
accounts, were set upon him by two rival poets out of envy. In
treating his characters and subjects Euripides often arbitrarily
departed from the received legends, and diminished the dignity of
tragedy by depriving it of its ideal character, and by bringing it down
to the level of every-day life. His dialogue was garrulous and
colloquial, wanting in heroic dignity, and frequently frigid through
misplaced philosophical disquisitions. Yet in spite of all these
faults Euripides has many beaut