Sophocles, son of Sophilos, from the deme Colonus, Athenian, tragedian, born during the seventy-third Olympiad, and thus he was seventeen years older than Socrates. Sophocles was first to employ three actors and the so-called tritagonist, and he was first to bring forth a chorus of fifteen young men. Before then, choruses consisted of twelve youths. He was called Bee because of his sweetness. He himself began competing with a play against a play but not conducting the levy. He wrote elegy and paeans and an account in prose of the chorus, in rivalry with Thespis and Choirilos. The boys whom he had were Iophon, Leosthenes, Ariston, Stephanos, and Menekleides. He died at ninety years, outliving Euripides. He taught 123 plays (or as some say, many more), and won twenty-three victories.