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Sophocles

Sophocles (c. 496–406 BCE), one of the three principal ancient Greek tragedians alongside Aeschylus and Euripides, composed the work amid the Peloponnesian War and shortly after the catastrophic Plague of Athens (430–426 BCE), which the play's opening plague is widely understood to evoke. A highly successful dramatist who introduced key innovations to Greek theater—including the third actor and more elaborate scene painting.

Philoctetes

Philoctetes (Φιλοκτήτης) was first performed at the City Dionysia in Athens in 409 BC, where it won first prize, when the playwright was in his late eighties. The play centers on the title character, a renowned archer who inherited the invincible bow of Heracles after lighting the hero's funeral pyre, and who was abandoned on the deserted island of Lemnos by the Greeks en route to Troy because a snakebite caused a chronic, foul-smelling, and agonizing wound that made his company intolerable.

Ten years later, with the Trojan War still unresolved, the Greeks learn from an oracle that Troy can only be taken with the aid of both Philoctetes and his bow; Odysseus and the young Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, are sent to Lemnos to retrieve them, with Odysseus devising a plan of deception that requires Neoptolemus to pretend friendship and offer passage home.

The scheme falters when Neoptolemus, moved by Philoctetes' suffering and his own sense of honor, reveals the truth, leading to intense conflict, reversals, and ultimately the appearance of the deified Heracles, who resolves the impasse by commanding Philoctetes to go to Troy, promising healing for his wound and victory for the Greeks.