son of George, duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg); her mother was the daughter of the Marquis d'Albreuse, a protestant gentleman of Poitou, who left France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Sophia Dorothea, then sixteen, was married on the 21st November, 1682, to the youth of twenty-two, afterwards George I. of England. She was beautiful, clever, imprudent; he was not only saturnine, but unfaithful, and the marriage proved a most unhappy one. Matters were aggravated by some encouragement which she gave to the attentions of the handsome and worthless Count Philip Königsmark, a colonel of dragoons in the Hanoverian service, and who, according to one version of the story, had been her playmate in early years. It seems that Sophia Dorothea's imprudence was turned to account by the Countess von Platen, George's mistress, who is said to have laid a trap for both by forging a note, in which Königsmark was invited to an interview with the princess in her private apartments. Returning from the interview (1st July, 1694), so runs the story, he was seized and executed.; certain it is that he was never again seen alive. On the 28th of December in the same year, the Hanoverian authorities pronounced a divorce between Sophia Dorothea and her husband, who, it may be added, was absent at the time of the Königsmark catastrophe. For the rest of her life, and known only as duchess of Ahlden, she was confined in the castle of Ahlden, on Luneburg Heath, and never appeared outside its walls unaccompanied by a military escort with swords drawn. She died at Ahlden on the 13th November, 1726. Before her divorce she bore her husband two children,—the one afterwards George II. of England—the other, Sophia Dorothea, who was married to Frederick William, king of Prussia, and became the mother of Frederick the Great.—F. E.
SOPHOCLES, the second in chronological order of the great Attic triad of tragic writers, was born in 495 b.c., in the district of Colonos, a few miles north-west of Athens, towards Mount Parnes on the river Cephissus. He was thus a mere child when Æschylus, his great predecessor, was taking part in the grand struggle between the West and the East, signified to all times by the name of Marathon, and a young man just emerging into publicity, at the time (580 b.c.) when the same soldier-bard helped to break for ever the insolent power of Xerxes in the straits of Salamis. In the sacrifices and sacred processions which followed this important victory, the young poet took a prominent part by singing and playing on the lyre as one of a chorus of young men, according to the custom of the Greeks. This early distinction, as well as the intimate footing on which he afterwards lived with Pericles and the first of the Athenian aristocracy, seem to indicate that he must have been a man of good family, though as to this point no exact information is given by the ancient biographers. Of his manhood the first remarkable event was his gaining the prize in the dramatic contest in the year 468 b.c., according to the Parian Marble, when he was twenty-eight years old; a date noticeable as that of the birth of Socrates, and of the commencement of the long political prominence of Pericles. With this great statesman we find the poet afterwards joined, as one of ten generals named by the Athenians to quell the Samian revolt in the year 440; but while he enjoyed the confidence and respect of his fellow-generals, it does not appear that he ever achieved, or indeed desired to achieve, any military reputation; nor of any of his existing dramas can it be said, as the comic poet says of the Seven against Thebes of Æschylus, that it is "full of war." On the contrary, a well-known anecdote mentioned by Cicero (Off. i. 40) exhibits him among his companions in command as more given to gaze with admiration on beautiful boys, than to rush, sword in hand, on fierce adversaries. The respect, however, in which he was held by the Athenians, and his general capacity as a public man, are further indicated by the fact that, according to an ancient inscription, we find him shortly afterwards acting as one of the managers of the common fund of the allies of Athens in the Ægean. Aristotle also (Rhet. iii. 18) mentions him at a later period as taking part in the creation of the celebrated council of the Four Hundred. These are the few reliable facts of a long life of ninety years, which have been redeemed from the great wreck of ancient literary tradition. His death, which took place in the year 406 or 405, is an ascertained date, and is interesting as connected on the one hand with the death of Euripides, which preceded it by a few months, and on the other, by the representation of the Frogs of Aristophanes, which immediately followed. There is a well-known anecdote also, touching the poet's family relations, which belongs to the last years of his life. Among his children by different mothers some dispute appears to have arisen about the prospective succession of their father; and Iophon, the eldest son by the first wife, apprehensive lest he should be deprived of his lawful share by the favourite grandson of the second, brought an action against his father to have him declared incapable of managing his own affairs. This charge, however, the poet publicly repelled in the most triumphant manner by producing the admirable play of the "Œdipus Coloneus," which he had just composed. It does not appear, however, that these domestic troubles had to any serious extent embittered the decline of the poet's life, otherwise the lines of Phrynichus would have required some qualification, which say:—
" Thrice blissful bard, who lengthened life's brief span
To ninety years, and died a prosperous man;
Rich-mouthed, he proved the sounding tragic song,
And ended well, who nothing knew of wrong."
Like Æschylus and Euripides, Sophocles afforded in his literary life a striking exemplification of the principle that the greatest genius is generally the most prolific. Other things being equal, of course, fertility is a sign of wealth, and wealth is the result of power. In a long life it is not surprising that a great poet, in good health and in easy circumstances, should have written above one hundred plays, of from fifteen hundred to sixteen hundred lines a piece. Of these only seven are extant—the "Œdipus Tyrannus," the "Antigone," and the "Œdipus Coloneus," belonging to the Theban legend; the "Electra," from the family history of Agamemnon after his return from Troy; the "Trachiniæ," a legend of the death of Hercules on Mount Œta; the "Ajax," a story of the insane rage of one Homeric hero; and the "Philoctetes," a dramatic version of the heart-rending sorrows of another. All these plays are characterized by great beauty, taste, harmony, and melody; and if they do not reach the sublime tragic height and startling dramatic effects of Æschylus, or the luxuriant flowing pathos of Euripides, they are certainly not married by the turgidity and obscurity from which the former is not always free, and the vulgar exaggeration, rhetorical parade, and ill-timed philosophy which are the recognized blots of the other. Of Sophocles we may well say, as has been said of Walter Scott, that if he was not the greatest literary man of his age and class, he was the most harmonious, the most healthy, and the most happy. All that we read of his personal character combines with the tone and temper of his extant works to give us the impression of a well-rounded man, and a complete typical Greek. His remarkable beauty of form is specially mentioned in ancient epigrams; and his skill in the thoroughly national arts of music and gymnastics specially celebrated. Rhythm, also measure or proportion in its largest sense—a characteristic element of the Greek mind—is also the characteristic excellence of his literary compositions; and the same representative character of his intellect is manifest in some anecdotes which were current among the ancients as to his admiration of beauty, and his capacity for every sort of vital enjoyment. Besides the literary merit of his plays, he is noted in the history of the Greek drama for having first introduced a third interlocutor, shortened the excessive length of the lyrical parts of the play, and increased the number of the chorus. The best English translations of Sophocles are by Franklin, Potter, and Dale. There is a translation of the "Antigone" by Donaldson, author of the New Cratylus.—J. S. B.
SOPHRON, a comic writer, who flourished about 450 b.c., is regarded as the father of Doric comedy. He was a native of Syracuse, and wrote in the Doric dialect, commonly used in Sicily. His works obtained the warm admiration of Plato, and an interesting reference to them occurs in the Symposium of Xenophon. The composition of his comedies was easy and unambitious, the versification being so lax as to approach nearly to prose. They were of two kinds—the one a sort of pantomime or farce, the other more akin to regular comedy.—G.
SORANUS: the name of several ancient physicians, whom it is impossible to distinguish with certainty. The most eminent was a native of Ephesus, who lived in the second century after Christ. He appears to have enjoyed a great reputation, as he is not only frequently quoted by Galen, Cælius Aurelianus, and other medical writers, but is also praised by St. Augustine and Tertullian. He belonged to the ancient medical sect of the Methodici, which sect he raised to its highest degree of reputation. He was educated at Alexandria, passed some time in Aquitania, and settled at Rome, where he taught and practised
