Collectively known as The Theban Plays, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone stand at the fountainhead of world drama.

Sophocles (496-406 BC) was one of the three great tragic playwrights of ancient Greece; he wrote 123 plays during a career of 60 years and was still writing at the age of 90. Only seven tragedies survive, of which the most famous is Oedipus Rex.