Sophocles

Sophocles, 497 BC - 406 BC: dispenses with the trilogy; adds a third actor. Wrote over 120 plays but only seven survived in complete form.

• Oldest play: Ajax
• Next: Antigone, written about the same time, about 440 BC
• Two Oedipus plays, bookends over 25 years: 
• Oedipus Rex -- first
• Oedipus at Colonus -- twenty-five years later
• Last play: Philoktetes (409 BC)
• Two other extant plays: 
• Women of Trachis

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Antigone

Continuation of the Oedipus saga. 

Plot:

At the beginning of the play all are dead except Ismene and Antigone. Antigone is to marry her cousin Haemon, but by the end of the play, in a revelation that demonstrates just how widespread the Labdaus curse is-- Haemon dies, Eurydice dies, and Antigone dies, leaving only Ismene and Creon as the de facto descendants of Labdacus.

Prior to beginning of Antigone:

Oedipus, shamed by his marriage and murder, surrenders the kingdom to his brother Creon (since Creon is Jocasta's brother, he is also Oedipus' brother -- not quite).

Creon takes over the kingdom because it is feared that Eteocles and Polyneices are also cursed by the Labdacus plague and will continue bringing misery to Thebes. Eventually, however, Polyneices makes a claim on the Theban crown, causing him to be banished. At this point, Polyneices raises an army, returns to claim Thebes, and ends up dying at the hands of Eteocles, who dies in the fray as well. Creon remains in control of Thebes.