The Big Three—Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles
- Aeschylus
- ~born in 525 BC in Eleusis
- ~As a child, he was ordered to watch grapes rippen and when he drifted to sleep, dreamed of Dionysus ordering him to write tradgedies and started the next morning.
- ~He was said to have died by an eagle mistaking his head for a rock and dropping a tortoise on it.
- ~Sophocles and Euripides were two of his successors.
- ~He had two sons who carried on his legacy and one, Euriphon, defeated both Sophocles and Euripides to claim first prize at the City Dionysia.
- ~He was the first to introduce a second actor in the play and involve the chorus in the action.
- ~Even though he was said to have written over 90 plays, only seven survived : The Suppliants, The Persians, Prometheus Bound, Seven Against Thebes, and Oresteia are some of them.
- Euripides
- ~Born in 480 BC in Athens
- ~Hippolytus, The Bacchae, Medea Trojan Women, and Iphigenia at Aulis are some of his plays.
- ~Some of his plays, like The Bacchae and Helena come close to being comedies instead of tragedies.
- ~Many of his plays forces his characters to confront personal issues but they did contain social issues for the time also.
- Sophocles
- ~ Born in 495 BC, northwest of Athens
- ~ one of the great playwrights of the golden age
- ~son of a merchant
- ~in first competition, took first place and defeated Aecschylus
- ~performed ain many of his own plays as an accoplished actor
- ~for many years, he served as an ordained priest in the service of two local heroes--Alcon
and Asclepius, the god of medicine - ~first to add the third actor
- ~of the 120 plays, only seven survived, some include Oedipus
the King, Antigone, and The Women of Trachis. - Tragedies_
- ~Paralogue-monologue or dialogue betfore the chorus to tell what the play is about
- ~Parode-chant for the Chorus's entry
- ~Episode-Several of them, the actors interact with the chorus and is, in part, sung, typically in iambic hexameter
- ~Stasimon-A choral ode in which the chorus may comment on or react to the preceding
episode - ~Exode-The chorus's exit song.