choral dance around the altar which had been raised in honour of the victory of Salamis. Ten years later, we find him coming forward as the rival of Æschylus at the great festival of Bacchus, at which the prizes for tragedy were awarded. Cimon and his nine colleagues had just returned from Samos, bringing with them the bones of Theseus, which were to serve as a talisman against plague and pestilence. The generals entered the theatre just before the commencement of the performances, and the Archon, estimating rightly the greatness of the occasion, swore them in to judge the case between the rival dramatists. They unanimously awarded the first prize to Sophocles; and Æschylus, it is said, in deep resentment of their verdict, left Athens, and retired to the court of Hiero at Syracuse.
A first success is everything in literature; and Sophocles, like others, found himself famous in a day. For more than forty years he continued to exhibit plays—sometimes winning the first prize, sometimes defeated in his turn by some younger candidate for fame, but never once degraded to the third place. So prolific was his genius, that he is said to have composed upwards of a hundred tragedies. Of these but seven are extant.
He had inherited a moderate income, and it is said this independence was necessary to the poet, for custom and etiquette prevented him from making money by his plays. "The crown of wild olive" was the only stimulus to genius; for the "two obols" paid by each citizen for admission went to the lessees of the theatre, and served to defray the necessary expense of scenery
