CHAPTER XIII. _SOPHOCLES._ The Personal Beauty of Sophocles: his Life; Stories about him.--Athens in the Age of Pericles.--Antique Criticism on his Style: its Perfect Harmony.--Aristotle's Respect for Sophocles.--Character in Greek Tragedy.--Sophocles and Æschylus.--The Religious Feeling of Sophocles.--His Ethics.--Exquisite Proportion observed in his Treatment of the _Dramatis Personæ_.--Power of Using Motives.--The _Philoctetes_.--Comparison of the _Choëphoroe_ and the _Electra_.--Climax of the _Oedipus Coloneüs_.--How Sophocles led onward to Euripides.--The _Trachiniæ_.--Goethe's Remarks on the _Antigone_.--The Tale of Thebes.--_Oedipus Tyrannus_, _Oedipus Coloneüs_, and _Antigone_ do not make up a Trilogy.--Story of Laius.--The Philosophy of Fate contained in it.--The Oracle.--Analysis of _Oedipus Tyrannus_.--Masterly Treatment of the Character of Oedipus.--Change of Situation in the _Coloneüs_.--Emergence of Antigone into Prominence.--Analysis of the Antigone.--The Character of Antigone: its Beauty.--Contrast afforded by Ismene and by Creon.--Fault in the Climax of the _Antigone_.--The Final Solution of the Laian Curse.--Antigone is not Subject to Nemesis Page 436 THE GREEK POETS CHAPTER I. _THE PERIODS OF GREEK LITERATURE._ Language and Mythology.--The Five Chief Periods of Greek Literature. The First Period: Homer--Religion and State of the Homeric Age--Achilles and Ulysses.--Second Period: Transition--Breaking-up of the Homeric Monarchies--Colonization--the Nomothetæ--Ionians and Dorians--Development of Elegiac, Iambic, Lyric Poetry--Beginning of Philosophy.--Third Period: Athenian Supremacy--Philosophy at Athens--the Fine Arts--the Drama--History--Sparta and Athens--Pericles and Anaxagoras.--Fourth Period: Hegemony of Sparta--Enslavement of Hellas--Demosthenes--Alexander and Achilles--Aristotle--the Hellenization of the East--Menander--the Orators.--Fifth Period: Decline and Decay--Greek Influence upon the World--Alexandria--the Sciences--Theocritus--the University of Athens--Sophistic Literature--Byzantium--Hellas and Christendom.