most useful edition for the ordinary student is that by Wunder, in Jacobs and Rost's Bibliotheca Graeca, containing the text, with critical and explanatory notes and introductions, Gothae et Erfurdt, 1831—1846. 2 vols. 8vo. in 7 parts, and with a supplemental part of emendations to the Trachiniae, Grimae, 1841, 8vo.
For a list of the editions of separate plays, and of the editions not noticed above, the reader is referred to Hoffmann's Lexicon Bibliographicum Scriptorum Graecorum.
Among the numerous translations of Sophocles, very few have been at all successful. There are English versions by Franklin, Lond. 1758; Potter, Lond. 1788; and Dale. 1824. The best German translations are those of Solger, Berlin, 1808, 1824, 2 vols. 8vo., and Fritz, Berlin, 1843, 8vo. Among the translations of separate plays, those of the Antigone, by Böckh and Donaldson, interpaged in their respective editions, deserve notice; Böckh, Berlin, 1843, 8vo.; Donaldson, London, 1848, 8vo.
A nearly complete list of the works illustrating Sophocles will be found in Hoffmann's Lexicon. They are far too numerous to be mentioned here; but it would be wrong to pass over the one, which is the most useful of them all for understanding the language of the author, namely Ellendt's Lexicon Sophocleum, Regimont. Pruss. (Königsberg) 1835, 2 vols. 8vo.
2. The son of Ariston and grandson of the elder Sophocles, was also an Athenian tragic poet. The love of his grandfather towards him has been already mentioned; and it cannot be doubted that one chief way in which Sophocles displayed his affection was by endeavouring to train up his grandson as the inheritor of his own skill in the art of tragedy. We have no definite statement of his age, but he was probably under twenty at the time of his grandfathers death, as he did not begin to exhibit his own dramas till about ten years after that time, namely in B. C. 396. (Diod xiv. 53, where Σοφοκλῆς ὁ Σοφοκλέους must either be corrected by adding υἱωνὸς or υἱδοῦς, or must be understood to mean the grandson, and not the son).
He had previously, in B. C. 401, brought out the Oedipus at Colonus (Argum. ad Oed. Col.), and we may safely assume that this was not the only one of his grandfather's dramas which he exhibited. There is much difficulty as to the proper reading of the numbers of plays and victories ascribed to him. According to the different readings, he exhibited 40 or 11 dramas, and gained 12, 11, or 7 prizes. (Suid. s. v.; Diod. l. c.; comp. Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. p. xxxv. e.) All that we know of his tragedies is contained in a passage of Clemens Alexandrinus (Protrept. 30, p. 26, Potter), who refers to statements made in three of them respecting the mere humanity of the Dioscuri. It is, however, a very probable conjecture that, since Aristophanes of Byzantium pronounced 27 of the plays which were extant in his time under the name of the great Sophocles to be spurious, some of these may have been the productions of his grandson. Suidas also ascribes elegies to the younger Sophocles. (Welcker, die Griech. Trag. p. 979; Kayser, Hist. Crit. Trag. Graec. pp. 79—81; Wagner, Poët. Trag. Graec. Frag. in Didot's Bibliotheca, p. 78.)
3. Suidas also mentions an Athenian tragic and lyric poet of this name, who lived later than the poets of the Tragic Pleiad, and to whom fifteen dramas were ascribed (Suid. s. v.) The name also occurs on the Orchomenian inscription.
4. An Athenian orator, whose oration for Euctemon is quoted by Aristotle. (Rhet. i. 15.) Ruhnken supposes that it was he, and not the poet, who was one of the Probuli, and that he was the same as the Sophocles who is mentioned by Xenophon (Hellen. ii. 3. § 2) as one of the Thirty Tyrants. (Hist. Crit. Orat. Graec., No. viii.)
5. A grammarian, who wrote commentaries on the works of Apollonius Rhodius. (Schol. ad Aristoph. Nub. 397; Steph. Byz. s.vv. Ἄϐαφνος and Κάναστρον.)
6. The son of Amphicleides, a native of Sunium, was the author of a decree expelling the philosophers from the Attic territory, or, as others say, forbidding any one, on pain of death, to preside over a school of philosophy, without the consent of the senate and people. After a year the decree was revoked, and Sophocles was fined five talents. (Diog. Laërt. v. 38; Pollux, ix. 42; Ath. xiii. p. 610, e. f.; Alexis, ap. Ath. l. c.) From the fragment of the Ἱππεύς of Alexis preserved by Athenaeus (l. c.) it is evident that the law was passed at end of Ol. 115 or the beginning of Ol. 116. B. C. 316 (Meineke, Hist. Crit. Com. Graec. p. 394). [P. S.]
SOPHO′NIAS (Σοφονίας), a Greek monk who wrote commentaries on Aristotle. Fabricius conjectures that he was the same Sophonias to whom one of the epistles of Simon of Constantinople, probably the same with Simon of Thebes [Simon, No. 22), is addressed. If this conjecture be admitted he must be placed about the end of the fourteenth century. The following works of his are extant in MS.: —1. In Aristotelis Categorias de Homonymis, Synonymis, Paronymis, Heteronymis, Polyonymis, &c. (Labbe, Nova Biblioth. MStorum Librorum, p. 115.) 2. Παράφρασις εἰς τὸ περὶ ψυχῆς τοῦ σοφωτάτου κυρίου Σοφονίου, Paraphrasis sapientissimi Sophoniae in Aristotelis Libros tres de Anima (Lambec. Commentar. de Biblioth. Caesaraea, vol. vii. col. 208, ed. Kollar, fol. Vienna, 1766, &c.; Bandini, Catal. Codd. Graec. Laurent. Medic. vol. i. p. 297, vol. iii. coll. 19, 278; Hardt. Catalog. Codd. MStorum Graec. Biblioth. Reg. Bavar. vol. iv. p. 242). Morelli (Biblioth. MSta Graeca et Latina, vol. i. p. 128, comp, Graec. D. Marci Biblioth. p. 116, fol. Venet. 1740) speaks of a MS., Aristotelis Praedicamentorum Paraphrasis, in the Library of St. Mark at Venice, which is anonymous, but is, he says, commonly attributed to the monk Sophonias: it is apparently only another MS. of the work No. 1. No. 2 is in a Florentine MS. ascribed, but erroneously, to Simplicius. Beside these works, there is a MS. in the Library of St. Mark, containing,—3. Τοῦ σοφωτάτου μοναχοῦ κυρίου Σοφονίου μελέτη, Παῦλος ἐν Ἀθήναις δημηγορῶν, Sophoniae sapientissimi Monachi Declamatio: Paulus in Athenis Concionem habens ad Populum (Graeca D. Marci Biblioth. p. 131). This last work is not mentioned by Fabricius. (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. pp. 209, 236, vol. xi. pp. 334, 714) [J.C. M.]
SOPHONISBA (Σοφόνισϐα or Σοφόνιϐα, see Schweigh. ad Appian. Pun. 27), a daughter of the Carthaginian general, Hasdrubal, the son of Gisco. She had been betrothed by her father, at a very early age, to the Numidian prince Masinissa, but at a subsequent period Hasdrubal being desirous to gain over Syphax, the rival monarch of Numi-
