Philoktetes

When Sophokles produced the Philoktetes in 408 B.C., three years before his death at the age of ninety, the ancient story of the tragic archer, abundantly represented in Greek literature, achieved a dramatic and psychological sophistication of a kind never before seen on the classical stage.

Foremost among Sophokles's concerns in the play, one that demanded such thoughtful consideration, is the question of human character and its origins.