Talk:Sophocles

message: The entire introduction (2 paragraphs) is copied word for word from http://www.biblio.com/authors/598/_Sophocles_Biography.html . I don't have time to fix this, but I'd appreiciate if someone took the initiative. Bifgis 02:45, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Plagiarism

message: The removed external link to the male homosexual site and its material used in the article
* was not a biography, but only discussed allegations about Sophocles' sex life
* the website demonstrates grounds of being unreliable
** it didn't make use of proper citations so the information can be checked
** it mis-cited Plato as if he were the primary source of his alleged opinions about Sophocles
* the source that the website did cite was unreliable
** it took the form of after-dinner gossip
** it was written 7 centuries after Sophocles after contemporary sources.
::Information about Sophocles is fair game for the article, and the accounts were presented as just that, accounts. Considering that none of the other information in this article is properly sourced, it is not clear on what grounds you chose to delete the material you removed. I will look up the sources so as to have a more solid grounding in the scholarship and then will repost. I will not suggest to you that you also look up the sources for any other material you may want to keep in the article. The fact is that if you have chosen Sophocles as the man to defend against accusations of sodomy you have probably picked a lost cause. Claudius may be a better bet. Haiduc 23:40, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You're wrong : 
its material used in the article
* was not a biography, but only discussed truths about Sophocles' sex life
* the website demonstrates grounds of being informative
** it didn't make use of proper citations so the information can be checked
* the source that the website did cite was completely reliable
** it was written 7 centuries after Sophocles after contemporary sources after the book of a WITNESS ION OF CHIOS.
Frimoussou (talk) 02:08, 4 January 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed "Biography" 

message: This article had BC/AD dates until 2 days ago. No information was added. I believe that this should be reverted to the version of December 5th...but am waiting for others to vote. Chooserr
:I support this proposed revert JG of Borg 00:56, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: BC/AD is the common usage in English. Dominick (TALK) 01:45, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Is this the Encyclopedia Britannica? No, this is wikipedia. So Britannica is irrelevant here. Yes, the rules allow for the dating system to remain the system. But they also allow for the dating system to be edited. And in this case, they need to be edited. Aecis praatpaal 23:02, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Aecis, I would normally agree with you about BCE/CE being more appropriate than BC/AD for many articles, but revert warring is a terrible way to go about it (Don't forget WP:3RR).  I can't support changing the date system on an article, once it's consistent, because this inevitably leads to edit wars, which help no one, and you should know that.  As long as both sides continue to stoop to such tactics, this will continue to be an unpleasant stalemate.  What we need is disciple from both sides about leaving date conventions the heck alone, once they're consistent in an article (which is still a stalemate, but a less combative one).  All IMO, of course. -GTBacchus(talk) 23:52, 16 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That rule does not exist.  Perhaps it should, and some of us are talking about adding such a "rule" to MoS, but at present it is incorrect to quote a non-existent policy as the reason for your reverts.  I don't care what format any article is in, and I have no problem with Christianity.  I just have a problem with edit wars.  I can't believe I'm witnessing people actually go through the equivalent of a school-yard "is not!" - "is so!" - "is not!" - "is so!" argument.  What do you think you're going to do, outlive the other side?  Be so stubborn everyone else just goes away?  When two people revert each other's edits more than once, they both lose the ability to claim that they're working for consensus, or displaying maturity.  The appropriate action is for everyone on both sides to stop editing date formats, get over to Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style (dates and numbers), and help hammer out a good rule like Pitchka is assuming already exists.  There are some details that will need to be worked out, and you can do much more good for the Wikipedia by helping to work those out than by changing articles, even if they're currently wrong. -GTBacchus(talk) 05:23, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Do you (john k, or anyone) have a link for that ArbCom decision?  Maybe I'll find it myself before you reply. -GTBacchus(talk) 06:26, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *This article seems to have consistantly used BCE/CE since around 2002, according to the edit history, also according to the edit history every few months a random troll comes along and insists that it was always written in BC, reverts several times, get's blocked, rinse, and repeat, and up until 'dwain' and 'chooserr' it was always the same person doing this--Aolanaonwaswronglyaccused 07:27, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *What's slightly disturbing, is that someone could actually carry out a 2 and a half year long edit war over something this pointless--Aolanaonwaswronglyaccused 07:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: In fact, it seems that chooserr didn't even exist until Jguk was blocked from making BC/BCE reverts, and on that note, I bid you a 'I really don't care about this issue at all', and goodnight--Aolanaonwaswronglyaccused 07:40, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: You might want to re-check those facts, Aolanaonwaswronglyaccused. According to the edit history, this article was begun in 2002 with "BC", not "BCE". "BCE" was introduced here in October, 2004. So, your summary above is false. Were you looking at some other article's history, perhaps? No, your link points to the diff where policy was correctly implemented, as the previous edit to that one was the very first to introduce BCE; you must be misrepresenting it accidentally. Please be more careful.  On a different note, thank you for finding a link to that ArbCom decision - good reading! -GTBacchus(talk) 07:48, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair enough, it's not like I read every edit between 2002 and 2005, I skimmed, but to be fair, it 'begun' as a one line stub, it's a bit of a stretch to describe that as an article--Aolanaonwaswronglyaccused 07:57, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Yeah, it began, or was begun, whichever you prefer, in BC format, and stayed faithful to that format for every single edit for thirty-two months.  Like you said, good night.  We'll get this sorted out.  I'm not reverting any date formats until the MoS is changed; I propose that other editors involved in this dispute do the same, as a gesture of good faith. -GTBacchus(talk) 08:15, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: The only revision I made was to remove the trainwreck of a revert done by a user evading a 36 hour block, this was not content related--Aolanaonwaswronglyaccused 11:21, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Speaking of which, does somebody mind re-blocking him for a few hours, since he violated his 36 block a half a dozen times--Aolanonawanabe 17:32, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *I've served my block, and am contributing. If you weren't so damn insistent about changing an article which was consistent under BC/Ad dates until just a few days ago then there wouldn't be a problem. Chooserr 17:34, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Editing under an anon ip is not serving your block--Aolanonawanabe 17:38, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Reblock--Aolanonawanabe 17:41, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: * I didn't edit the whole time I was blocked. If I were able to edit which do you think would be more Important to me. You vandalising the Image:Vaticastar.png, replacing it with a picture of human fetal tissue, or this fucking dating system? Chooserr 17:45, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: *Replacing one unsourced image with another is not vandalism--Aolanonawanabe 17:46, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: *I made it. It doesn't need any source by my computer. Chooserr 17:48, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: Aolanaonwaswronglyaccused...um...I find it astonishing that a user account which began editing, um, yesterday, and who seems to know so much about wikipedia policies, would be so eager to accuse other people of being sockpuppets...Let he who is without sin... john k 17:55, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I was never blocked for anything, and I'm not exactly hiding my old account, I got frustrated with this chooserr nonsense, and retired my user name, unfortunatly the bit about randomly changing my password was true, that's easy enough to verify--Aolanonawanabe 17:59, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: What was your old username? john k 18:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: --Aolanonawanabe 18:12, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Got it.  Sorry to have (kind of) accused you of being a sockpuppet.  At any rate, we should all be careful of making unsupported allegations of sockpuppetry. And changing Chooserr's image wasn't very nice. john k 18:14, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

text: I hate to seem pedantic, but... with all this talk of BC vs BCE, nobody has yet spotted the fact that the article claims 487BC is before 490BC. If I knew the actual facts I'd correct it myself, but, since I don't... Anyone? jkg (talk) 23:24, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Exactly! "His birth took place a few years before the Battle of Marathon in 490 BCE: the exact year is unclear, although 487/6 is perhaps most likely." If 486 or 487 are most likely, then he was born a few years AFTER the Battle of Marathon. Altgeld (talk) 22:02, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Okay. Looks like a typo which I will change. E F Watling's introduction to the Penguin edition of Electra and other plays gives 496. A. H. Sommerstein's introduction to the first volume of the framents for Airs & Philips gives "in ro close to 496" wih footnotes indicating that The Life of Sophocles gives 495/4, Diodorus Siculus says S was 90 whe he died in 406/5 and that the Marmor Parium says S was 28 when he won his first victory in 469/8.  --Peter cohen (talk) 16:44, 23 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  BC 

message: all the brackets take away from the article IMHO making it harder to read. It chops it up into little sections so it doesn't flow naturally. Is this the kind of article we want on wikipedia? The information might be necessary, but isn't there another way we can write it out? Chooserr 06:55, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  hun?? 

message: At this point this article does not present any of the information relating to Sophocles' attraction to youths. I have reworked the paragraph I had offered here a while ago, in the hope of satisfying the requirements of good editorial practice. I append it below (with the cites exposed) for your comments, before inserting it into the article.
Several ancient writers have commented on Sophocles' fame as a lover of youths. Athenaeus reported that Sophocles loved boys like Euripides loved women.(ref>Athenaeus: The Deipnosophists, Book XIII (603)(/ref> He relates an anecdote involving Sophocles seducing a serving boy at a symposium, as well as another, ascribed to Hieronymus of Rhodes (Historical Notes) in which Sophocles is tricked by a hustler.(ref>ibid. (604E)</ref) Plutarch, in his "Life of Pericles" mentions an incident, during a naval  expedition, in which Sophocles praised the beauty of a young recruit. Pericles's rebuked him by warning that a general must keep not only his hands clean, but also his eyes.<ref)Plutarch, The Lives, "Life of Pericles" 8.5</ref) Haiduc 01:53, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sophocles and the pederastic tradition 

message: There's a redirect here from Attic bee, but no explanation.  Just Googled it, but it'd be better if someone with a clue added the information. 87.113.72.250 23:49, 9 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: See here: --213.213.135.228 (talk) 19:49, 26 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  attic bee 

message: There's no mention of his bisexuality.
--Yes, it's nonsense.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.167.40.232 (talk) 20:40, 7 November 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: I wonder why indeed. His bisexuality is well established.194.153.110.6 (talk) 16:23, 28 December 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  Obvious Nonsense 

message: There's an odd combination of parenthetical referencing and footnote referencing. Seeing as how the footnote referencing was here first, I'd reccommend a return to that method, but I'd really just like to see one consistent style, parenthetical or otherwise. If whoever is most involved in this article would care to do so, I'd be quite thankful.
Thanks for your time, Geuiwogbil 02:31, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Citation mixing 

message: *in a post above there's a complaint about plagiarism. The article text has been altered enough that I suppose there's no copyright violation, but it is still obvious that the WP text depends on another website. The first three paragraphs need to be completely rewritten; I don't have time to do that right now, but I will try to do so soon.
*Sophocles was a priest of the hero Halon, and was involved in welcoming the cult of Asclepius to Athens (well, that's what Plutarch says, anyway). He was also given hero cult after his death, under the name Dexion. All of this is worth mentioning, and I will add it when I can.
*I can't stand the notion of a "Theban cycle" or "Theban trilogy" (see also Three Theban plays). Here I'll quote the OCD: "the plays are sometimes called the 'Theban plays' or even the 'Theban trilogy'; both titles mislead, the second grossly: if the traditional chronology has any basis in fact the plays were written in the order: Antigone, Oedipus Tyrannus, Oedipus at Colonos and may well have been separated by decades." Unfortunately, there are plenty of classicists & publishers who are happy to group these plays together, but maybe we can at least set out a chronology and avoid implying that Soph. ever intended them to go together as parts 1, 2, and 3. --Akhilleus (talk) 05:35, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Some problems with the article

message: :GA review (see here for criteria)
#It is reasonably well written.
#:a (prose):  b (MoS): 
#It is factually accurate and verifiable.
#:a (references):  b (citations to reliable sources):  c (OR): 
#It is broad in its coverage.
#:a (major aspects):  b (focused): 
#It follows the neutral point of view policy.
#:a (fair representation):  b (all significant views): 
#It is stable.
#:
#It contains images, where possible, to illustrate the topic.
#:a (tagged and captioned):  b lack of images (does not in itself exclude GA):  c (non-free images have fair use rationales): 
#Overall: 
#:a Pass/Fail: 
Good article nomination on hold.
* Inline citations: Clean up the foot notes.  There is one that just says "Lloyd-Jones" with no title, page number, or anything else.
* Stability: It seems to still be settling in, largely becuase there are still unsourced statements with fact tags.  Cite everything, and it should pass.
--Selket Talk 23:25, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Good article review

message: I'm adding the navigation template for Sophocles plays for easy linking to the individual articles.
DionysosProteus 17:52, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Template added 

message: Hello. I am suggesting the following book as Further Reading on the Sophocles page:
Ramfos, Stelios. Fate and Ambiguity in Oedipus the King. Boston: Somerset Hall Press, 2006. 
Disclosure: I am the publisher of this book. To avoid overstepping conflict of interest guidelines, I am bringing this up on the talk page. I believe this book adds to the scholarly discussion of this topic. Stelios Ramfos is a prominent modern Greek philosopher. More info about this book and other books by Ramfos is available on Amazon.com. Look up Stelios Ramofs (alternative spelling Ramphos). I'll avoid further marketing language here. ;) I made a similar suggestion on the Oedipus the King talk page. Thank you for your consideration. Summer612 (talk) 18:10, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Further Reading-Ramfos 

message: Sophocles competed in around thirty drama competitions; he won perhaps twenty four and never received lower than second place. Aeschylus won fourteen competitions and was defeated by Sophocles at times. Euripides won only four competitions (Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.).
If he entered 30 competitions, he could not have been defeated 14 times by Aeschylus and 4 times by Euripedes. I suggest inserting 50 copetitions, the amount of time he was an active playright. Although it could also mean that Aeschylus and Euripides didnt' overlap and showed that he won 24, the others won that many over their lifetime. So because of this, I am asking someone else to look at this. Yialanliu (talk) 01:13, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Aeschylus became active as a playwright earlier than Sophocles, so could have won several competitions before S entered any. However I do think it is worth checkign the sourcing of this fact, if only to get proper ref details. I shall, at least, move the mention of Britannica to the footnotes.--Peter cohen (talk) 09:51, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Wikipedia article on Aeschylus says this: "The Alexandrian Life of Aeschylus indicates that the playwright took the first prize at the City Dionysia thirteen times. This compares favorably with Sophocles' reported eighteen victories (with a substantially larger catalogue, at an estimated 120 plays), and dwarfs the five victories of Euripides (who featured a catalogue of roughly 90 plays)." Altgeld (talk) 22:21, 22 September 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  A discrepancy 

message: The first paragraph of the "Life" section first indicates 468 (which is what I was taught in grad school), but later says that the likely date is 470. It's sourced to Sommerstein (who knows his stuff), so I'll trust the editor. Still, I think it might be useful to put the two dates closer together in the graph and explain briefly why 470 has supplanted 468 as the opinio communis.
P.S. I added a bit about the stories concerning the playwright's death. I didn't source them as I don't have the sources at hand. A little help? Ifnkovhg (talk) 19:42, 25 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've reworded things slightly to try to address the confusion on dates you mention. Last July User:Helione inserted material decribing the "unusual circumstances" of the victory in between the two dates. Whilst the contributions suggest that this editor knows what they're talking about, unfortunately they did not reference things and it reads as if the Sommerstein introduction to the fragments is the source for the new information. However, I've checked my copy of Sommerstein and he doesn't mention that story. Do you have a source that does?
The death stories look fine.--Peter cohen (talk) 11:56, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Date of first competition? Plus a minor addition 

message: I've asked above but I'll ask again while there are several people here. The following was added last year by an editor who has become inactive. 
The victory came under unusual circumstances. At the time, the remains of the hero Theseus were being removed by Cimon from the isle of Scyros to Athens. Instead of following the custom of choosing judges by lot, the archon asked Cimon and the other strategoi present to decide the victor of the contest. Aeschylus soon left for Sicily following this loss to Sophocles.
 
This is unsourced and the following sentence is sourced to a text that does not contain this information. The article on Aeschylus is a lot less certain about the date of his trips to Greece and the unquestioned reference to the remains of Theseus makes me think that this is an ancient invention and possibly untrue. --Peter cohen (talk) 23:51, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: This stuff definitely needs citation. Theseus' bones are usually thought to have been transferred to Athens in 476/5 but a case can be made for other dates. Cimon and the other generals served as judges for the City Dionysia in 468. I doubt that Aeschylus' trip can be securely connected to his loss in 468, but there might be an ancient source that claims this. I don't have sources for any of this at hand, though--I'll try to find some and report back later. --Akhilleus (talk) 00:03, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  I added the source. It's from Plutarch's Life of Cimon. Ifnkovhg (talk) 01:59, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

text:  P.S. I wanted to include the factoid that while Aeschylus apparently never defeated Sophocles, his nephew Philocles won the first prize over Soph.'s OT. Does it warrant mention? Is it belong with Aeschylus or Sophocles? Thanks. Ifnkovhg (talk) 02:04, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks. Also thanks for helping me win a bet with myself. I was all ready to accuse Plutarch of this but, as  I had no evidence, thought I had better not.--Peter cohen (talk) 10:58, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Request for source 

message: How can he have gone to Samos in 441/0, following the production of the play Antigone, when your article on Antigone states that the play was performed in 422 or later? Something's wrong with one of your chronologies.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.8.58.57 (talk) 19:52, 4 December 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Samos? 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: I have reverted the addition of Philoctetes and Oedipus at Colonus to the notable works section of the infobox. To the best of my knowledge they do not seem even as close to well known, analyzed or studied as Sophocles' other works. Additionally, having them would mean that all 7 of his surviving plays are considered "notable works" which defeats the purpose of having such a section. Aza24 (talk) 05:30, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that by default the "notable" is already treated as "particularly notable", or at least, that's how I see it. I'll be honest, I'm not sure which one is "unquestionably so" – I'm assuming Antigone or Oedipus Rex? In my mind Ajax and Oedipus at Colonus fall behind the other three in "notability". Aza24 (talk) 02:11, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
replies: text:  I was thinking of OT. Untitled50reg (talk) 06:19, 13 September 2020 (UTC)
thread_title:  Recent change 

message: what does this mean? 64.18.99.238 (talk) 01:50, 6 January 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  (OK *insert 1460 etc) 

message: I'm concerned that at the bottom of the article there is reference to 'Ancient Greek LGBT people'. I consider this entirely inappropriate. Indeed, in the article itself a section is devoted to Sophocles's reported homosexuality, but then no attention is given to the fact he actually had a wife and sons. Perhaps he inclined to both sexes, but it's not right to make an emphasis of one thing and not another. That's not fair objective reporting. Robert, UK. 2A00:23C7:63B5:3F01:5C1F:6CC:5052:3922 (talk) 13:12, 20 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  homosexuality