This timeline gives a chronology for the surviving Greek tragedies, plotting them against other events in the poets’ lives and Athenian history. The accuracy with which this can be achieved varies. We sometimes know the exact date for the first performance of a tragedy, but at other times scholars rely on guesswork or extrapolation from other factors. In the case of Euripides, his changing use of metre over his career enables scholars to estimate rough dates for plays whose first performance is otherwise not known; in the case of Sophocles, we have no equivalent way of ordering the plays, and the picture is much less certain. The timeline does not include Prometheus Bound (attributed to Aeschylus) or Rhesus (attributed to Euripides), as their authenticity and thus their dating is uncertain.
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Date of production of surviving plays (all BC) |
Other relevant literary and historical dates (all BC) |
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c. 525 Birth of Aeschylus |
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510 End of tyranny in Athens |
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499 First production by Aeschylus |
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496/5 Birth of Sophocles |
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490 Battle of Marathon (defeat of first Persian invasion) |
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484 First victory of Aeschylus |
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480s Birth of Euripides |
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480 Battle of Salamis (defeat of second Persian invasion) |
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479 Battle of Platea (defeat of second Persian invasion) |
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472 Aeschylus’ Persians |
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468 First victory of Sophocles |
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467 Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes |
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463 Probable date of Aeschylus’ Suppliant Women |
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462–461 Political reforms at Athens and introduction of radical democracy |
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458 Aeschylus’ Oresteia (Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Kindly Ones) |
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456–455 Death of Aeschylus |
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455 First production by Euripides |
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441 First victory of Euripides |
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440s Probably the decade in which Sophocles’ Ajax, Antigone and Women of Trachis were produced |
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438 Euripides’ Alcestis |
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431 Euripides’ Medea |
431 Beginning of Peloponnesian War |
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430 Plague in Athens |
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428 Euripides’ Hippolytus |
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c. 430–428 Estimated date for Euripides’ Children of Heracles |
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420s Probably the decade in which Sophocles’ Oedipus the King was produced |
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c. 426 Estimated date for Euripides’ Andromache |
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c. 424 Estimated date for Euripides’ Hecuba |
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c. 423 Estimated date for Euripides’ Suppliant Women |
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c. 422–415 Estimated date range for Euripides’ Electra and Heracles |
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c. 420–410 Estimated date range for Sophocles’ Electra |
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415 Euripides’ Trojan Women |
415–413 Athens’ invasion of Sicily and defeat there |
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c. 415–410 Estimated date range for Euripides’ Ion |
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c. 413 Estimated date for Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians |
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412 Euripides’ Helen |
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411 Aristophanes’ Women at the Thesmophoria |
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411 Oligarchic Coup and overthrow of democracy at Athens |
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410 Restoration of democracy in Athens |
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409 Sophocles’ Philoctetes |
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c. 409 Estimated date for Euripides’ Phoenician Women |
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408 Euripides’ Orestes (his satyr play Cyclops also estimated to be around this date) |
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406 Death of Sophocles |
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After 406 Euripides’ Bacchae and Iphigenia At Aulis (produced posthumously) |
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405 Aristophanes’ Frogs |
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404 Defeat of Athens and end of Peloponnesian War |
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401 Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus (produced posthumously) |