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 168 SOPHOCLES tion were strongly excited; and the first prize, which for a whole generation had belonged to ^Eschylus, was now awarded to his youth- ful rival " From this time to 441 lie is said to have written 31 plays. In 440 "Antigone," his earliest extant drama, gained the prize, and si > deliirliU-d the Athenians that they elected him one of the ten stfategi for the ensuing year. He engaged as the colleague of Peri- cles in the Sainian expedition, but neither achieved nor sought military reputation. He was familiar with Herodotus, and wrote a poem in his honor. Ruhnken supposes that it was not the poet, but an orator of the same name, who after the destruction of the Sicil- ian army in 413 favored the oligarchical move- ment and was appointed one of the ten irp6- povlot. Sophocles refused repeated invitations to leave Athens and reside at foreign courts. During the 34 years following the success of "Antigone" he produced 81 dramas. Con- tending, besides ^Eschylus, with Euripides, Choerilus, Aristias, Agathon, and his own son lophon, he gained the first prize 20 or 24 times, and the second in all other cases. At an ad- vanced age he filled the office of priest to the native hero Halon. There is no certain au- thority for any of the accounts of his death, that he was choked by a grape, that he sus- tained his voice so long in publicly reading the " Antigone" as to lose his breath and life tether, or that he died of joy on obtaining a dramatic victory. It has been said that he combined all the qualities which, in the judg- ment of a Greek, would make up a perfect character : beauty and symmetry of person, mastery alike in music and gymnastics, spon- taneity of genius and faultlessness of taste, con- stitutional repose, a habit of tranquil medita- tion, a ready wit, and an amiable demeanor. Sophocles is placed by the universal consent of ancient and modern critics at the head of the Greek drama. His tragedies hold the just mean between the vague and solemn sublimity of ./Eschylus and the familiar scenes and rhe- torical pathos of Euripides, presenting the char- acters of men worthy of sympathy and admi- ration, while the former delighted in religious tlienus fit to inspire awe, and the latter abounds in unpoetical disquisition and immoral vehemence of passion. He illustrates the age of Pericles, intervening between that of the heroes of Marathon and Salamis and that of the sophists. Of all his dramas only seven have been preserved, to which Mailer assigns the following chronological order: "Antigone," " Electra," " Trachinian Women," " King <Edi- pus," " Ajax," " Philoctetes," and " (Edipus at Colonus." They all belong to the latter period of his life and reveal his art in its full maturity, and several of them were esteemed by the an- cient* among his greatest works. The " (Edi- pus at Colonus " was first brought out by his grandson after his death. There are also frag- ments and titles of his lost plays. The editio ft of Sophocles is that of Aldus (1502). SORBONNE The text of Turnebus's edition (1533) served as a basis for the subsequent editions of Henry Stephens (1568), Canterus (1579), and others, until the edition of Brunck (2 vols., Strasbourg, 1786), which is the basis of all later editions. Among the best are those of Hermann (4th ed., Leipsic, 1851), Dindorf (new ed., Leipsic, 1867), Tourneur (Paris, 1873), Schneidewin (4th ed. by Nauck, Berlin, 1873), Campbell (Oxford, 1873-'4), Blaydes (London, 1873-'4), and White (Boston, 1874). The best transla- tions are : in German, by Jordan (Berlin, 1862), Scholl (new ed., Leipsic, 1871), and Donner (7th ed., Leipsic, 1873); in French, by Fayart (Paris, 1849), Artaud (6th ed., 1862), and Per- sonneaux (2d ed., 1874); and in English, by Adams (London, 1729), Franklin (l758-'9), Potter (1788), Dale (1824), Buckley (Bohn's "Classical Library," 1849), Plumptre (1866- '71), Collins ("Ancient Classics for English Readers," London and Philadelphia, 1873), and Campbell (1874). SOPHOCLES, Evangelinus Ipostolides, an Ameri- can scholar, born near Mt. Pelion, in Thessaly, March 8, 1807. He studied in the convent on Mt Sinai, emigrated to the United States, entered Amherst college in 1829, taught school, and was tutor in Greek in Harvard college in 1842-'5 and 1847-'59. He was then appointed assistant professor of Greek there, and in 1860 professor of ancient, Byzantine, and modern Greek. He received the degree of A. M. from Yale college in 1837 and from Harvard college in 1847, and that of LL. D. from the Western Reserve col- lege in 1862 and from Harvard college in 1868. He has published " A Greek Grammar " (Hart- ford, 1838; 3d ed., 1847); "First Lessons in Greek " (1839) ; " Greek Exercises" (1841 ; 3d ed., 1848); "A Romaic Grammar" (1842; 2d ed., Boston, 1857, and London, 1866) ; " Greek Lessons for Beginners" (Hartford, 1843); "Catalogue of Greek Verbs" (1844); "His- tory of the Greek Alphabet, with Remarks on Greek Orthography and Pronunciation " (Cam- bridge, 1848; 2d ed., 1854); "A Glossary of Later and Byzantine Greek" (4to, Boston, 1860, forming vol. vii., new series, of the "Memoirs of the American Academy "); and " Greek Lexicon of the Roman and Byzantine Periods" (8vo, Boston, 1870), his chief work. SOPHONISBA. See MASINISSA. SORACTE (now Monte di SanC Oreste, and sometimes Monte di San Silvestro), a moun- tain of ancient Etruria, in the territory of the Falisci, visible from and about 25 m. N. of Rome. It rises in an abrupt mass to a height of about 2,250 ft. It was consecrated to Apollo, who had a temple on its summit, where the present monastery of San Silvestro stands. SORBOME, the principal school of theology in the ancient university of Paris. It was founded in 1253 by Robert de Sorbonne or Sorbon, so called from his birthplace in Cham- pagne. He had been a poor student, but be- came chaplain to Louis IX. in 1252, and found-