Iophon

Iophon, Greek tragic poet, son of Sophocles.

He gained the second prize in 428 BC, Euripides being first, and Ion third. He must have been living in 405, the date of the production of the Frogs of Aristophanes, in which he is spoken of as the only good Athenian tragic poet, although it is hinted that he owed much to his fathers assistance. He wrote 50 plays, of which only a few fragments remain.

It is said that Iophon accused his father before the court of the phratores of being incapable of managing his affairs, so that he might gain the guardianship of his father's fortune, to which Sophocles replied by reading the chorus of the Oedipus at Colonus (688 ff.), which he was currently writing; the piece so proved that he was still in possession of all his mental faculties that he was acquitted.

See Aristophanes, Frogs, 73, 78, with scholia; Cicero, De seneclute, vii. 22; Plutarch, Moralia, 785 B; A Nauck, Tragicorum Graecorum fragmenta (1889); O Wolff, De Iophonte poeta (Leipzig, 1884).

This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.