Sophocles

He was educated with great care, according to the old Greek system, in which music, dancing, and gymnastics training played an important part. By the age of sixteen, he was already known for his beauty and grace and was chosen to lead a choir of boys at a celebration of the victory of Salamis. His instructor was Lamprus, a celebrated musician of the period, and a supporter of the antique and dignified style of music, as opposed to the more florid manner which was then being introduced.
An accomplished actor, Sophocles performed in many of his own plays. In the Nausicaa or The Women Washing Clothes, he performed a juggling act that so fascinated his audience it was the talk of Athens for many years. However, the young athenian's voice was comparatively weak, and eventually he would give up his acting career to pursue other ventures.
He was severely religious - and let his house be used for worship of the healing god Asclepius while a temple was being built.
In addition to his theatrical duties, Sophocles served for many years as an ordained priest of Alcon and Asclepius, the god of medicine.
Of Sophocles' more than 123 plays, only seven have survived in their entirety. Of these, Oedipus the King is generally considered his greatest work. Oedipus Rex is a superb example of dramatic irony. It is not a play about sex or murder; it is a play about the inadequacy of human knowledge and man's capacity to survive almost intolerable suffering.
The Electra is Sophocles's only play that can be compared thematically with works of Aeschylus (Libation Bearers) and Euripides (Electra). The Electra of Sophocles may have been written as an answer to Euripides's Electra. Matricide and murder are fully justified, Clytemnestra and Aegisthus are completely and utterly evil, and Electra avenges her father's death relentlessly and almost psychopathically.
He won 24 victories (i.e. 96 of his plays won first prize, as they were always produced in fours). He never came third (i.e. last) in a dramatic competition.
Another masterpiece, Antigone, is the story of a passionate young woman who refuses to submit to earthly authority when it forbids a proper burial for her brother. Illustrating the rival claims of the state and the individual conscience, Antigone is an excellent example for the modern social dramatist.
Because of the attractiveness of his verse - the "honey" - he was called "the bee". His character was summed up by the comic writer Aristophanes as "he always took life as it came."
Shortly after the production of Oedipus at Colonus in 406, Sophocles passed away.