# Fame.am profile — machine-readable export
# Canonical URL: https://fame.am/person/sophocles
# Generated: 2026-09-01T12:43:56.720Z

schema: https://schema.org/Person
url: "https://fame.am/person/sophocles"
name: "Sophocles"
slug: "sophocles"
description: "He dominated Athens' dramatic competitions for half a century, winning 24 out of 30 contests and never placing lower than second. Of the 120-plus plays he wrote, seven survive — and two of them, Oedipus Rex and Antigone, became the template for tragedy itself."
tagline: "Ancient Greek playwright"
image: "https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:FilePath/Ny_Carlsberg_Glyptothek_-_Sophokles.jpg?width=1200"
gender: "male"
category:
  name: "Writers"
  slug: "writers"
profileType:
  name: "Writer / Author"
  slug: "writer"
birthDate: "-496"
deathDate: "-406"
livingStatus: "DECEASED"
scores:
  popularity:           84.79
  momentum:             0
  historical:           25.490256
  currentAttention:     7.964285714285715
  sourceConfidence:     65
  profileCompleteness:  65
  trendDirection:       "FALLING"
ranks:
  global:   246
  country:  null
  category: 37
tags:
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    slug: "writers"
  - name: "Writer / Author"
    slug: "writer-author"
  - name: "Theatre"
    slug: "theatre"
  - name: "Literature"
    slug: "literature"
  - name: "Religion"
    slug: "religion"
  - name: "Politics"
    slug: "politics"
  - name: "Philosophy"
    slug: "philosophy"
  - name: "Ancient History"
    slug: "ancient-history"
platforms:
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    url:       "https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0814668/"
    handle:    "nm0814668"
sources:
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    title: "Sofocles"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Sophokles"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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    title: "Sofokles"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sofokle"
    title: "Sofokle"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
  - url: "https://btm.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophocles"
    title: "Sophocles"
    type:  "WIKIPEDIA"
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# bio (long form, separated for readability)
bio: |
  Sophocles was writing in Athens around 497/496 BC, entering a field already occupied by Aeschylus and soon to include Euripides. Over nearly fifty years he became the most celebrated playwright at the Lenaea and Dionysia festivals, racking up a competitive record no peer could match. He changed the form itself: Aristotle credits him with adding a third actor to the stage, which shifted weight from the chorus to the unfolding plot and let him develop characters with a depth earlier playwrights hadn't reached. More than 120 plays came from him, but only seven made it through intact — Ajax, Antigone, Women of Trachis, Oedipus Rex, Electra, Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus. The Theban plays, centered on Oedipus and Antigone, weren't written as a set but became the most famous, each belonging to a different tetralogy now otherwise lost. He died in the winter of 406/405 BC, leaving behind a blueprint for how humans break under the weight of fate.