One of the great paradoxes of)". History is that the next hesitant advance of European civilization the development of the first city-states took place not on the fertile open central European plains, but in a remote island to the south of the Aegean Sea which was completely lacking .
in metal resources. While the glittering mounted warrior-princes of central Europe dissipated their creative energy in warefare, a highly cultured yet peaceful society, built ontrade and an agricultural surplus, emerged on Crete.
The history of Greece
can be traced back to Stone Age hunters. Later came early farmers and thecivilizations of the Minoan and Mycenaean kings. This was followed by a period of wars)".
and invasions, known as the Dark Ages. In about 1100 BC, a people called the Dorians invaded from the north and spread down the west coast. In the period from 500-336 BC Greece was divided into small city states, each of which consisted of a city and its surrounding countryside.
Sophocles won first prize about 20 times and many second prizes. His life, which ended in 406 BC at about the age of 90, coincided with the period of Athenian greatness.
He was not politically active or militarily inclined, but the Athenians twice elected him to high military office.
Sophocles wrote more than 100 plays of which seven complete tragedies and fragments of 80 or 90 others are preserved. He was the first to add a third actor. He also abolished the trilogic form. Sophocles chose to make each tragedy a complete entity in itself--as a result, he had to pack all of his action into the shorter form, and this .