Some Useful Information about the Great Tragedians
dates marked with an asterisk (*) are known and secure


Aeschylus
(ca. 525/524 - 456/455 BCE)

70-90 total plays (including satyr dramas)

First competition: 500/499-497/496
First victory: *484, out of ca. 13 total firsts.

*Persians, 472
*Seven against Thebes, 467
Suppliant Women, ca. 463
*Oresteia Trilogy (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides), 458
?Prometheus Bound, 450-425


Sophocles
(*495/4 - *406/5 BCE)

120+ total plays (including satyr dramas)

First competition: *468 with his first play, Triptolemus.
Won 18-24 total firsts.

Ajax, 450-430
Women of Trachis, 450-430
Antigone, ca. 442
Oedipus the King, 429-425?
Electra, 420-410
*Philoctetes, 409 (first prize)
*Oedipus at Colonus, 401 (posthumous)


Euripides
(ca. 484 - *406 BCE)

90+ total plays (including satyr dramas)

First competition: *455 (third).
First victory: *442, out of five total firsts.

*Alcestis 438 (second prize)
*Medea 431 (third prize)
Children of Heracles, ca. 430
*Hippolytus, 428 (first prize)
Andromache, ca. 425
Hecuba, ca. 424
Suppliant Women, ca. 423
Electra, 420-416
Heracles, 416-4
*Trojan Women, 415 (second prize)
Iphigenia among the Taurians, ca. 414
Ion, 413-10
*Helen, 412
*Phoenician Women, 410
*Orestes, 408
*Bacchae and Iphigenia in Aulis, after 406 (posthumous first prize)
Cyclops (date unknown, possibly 410-08).

The Rhesus transmitted under Euripides' name is probably a fourth-century play by a now nameless poet.