I'ophon
（
Ἰοφῶν).
1. The legitimate son of Sophocles, by Nicostrate, was a distinguished tragic poet.
He brought out tragedies during the life of his father; and, according to a scholiast, gained a brilliant victory (
ἐνίκησε λαμπρῶς).
He is said to have contended with his father (
Vit. Soph.); and it is recorded that he gained the second place in a contest with Euripides and Ion, in B. C. 428. (
Arg. in Eur. Hipp.) He was still flourishing in B. C. 405, the year in which Aristophanes brought out the
Frogs.The comic poet speaks of him as the only good tragedian left, but expresses a doubt whether he will sustain his reputation without the help of his father (who had lately died); thus insinuating either that Sophocles had assisted lophon in the composition of his plays, or that lophon was bringing out his father's posthumous tragedies as his own.
The number of Iophon's tragedies was 50, of which the following are mentioned by Suidas:
Ἀχιλλεύς,
Τήλεφος,
Ἀκταίων,
Ἰλίου πέρσις,
Δεξαμενός,
Βάκχαι,
Πενθεύς : the last two titles evidently belong to one play. To these should perhaps be added a satyric drama entitled
Αὐλῳδυί. (Clem. Alex.
Strom.i. p. 280.) Of all his dramas, only a very few lines are preserved. For the celebrated story of his undutiful charge against his father, see SOPHOCLES. Sophocles is said to have been reconciled to Iophon, who placed an inscription on his father's tomb, in which particular mention was made of the composition of the
Oedipus at
Colonus. (
V. Max. 8.7. ext. 12.)
There is a curious passage of the same grammarian (Cramer,
Anecd. vol. iv. p. 315), attributing the composition of the
Antigone to lophon. (Suid.
s. v. Ἰοφῶν,
Σοφοκλῆς;
Aristoph. Frogs 73-
78, and schol.; Welcker,
die Griech. Trag. pp. 975-977; Kayser,
Hist. Crit. Trag. Graec. pp. 76-79; Fabric.
Bibl. Graec. vol. ii. pp. 308, 309.)
