The Ancient Greeks were instrumental in advancing the theater when arts were just beginning to be recognized as important during the Fifth Century B.C.E. Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides were key factors in this, and some of their works have survived and continue to receive praise today. Each playwright left his own mark on the world of theater and were the building blocks of modern playwriting, which shows just how critical these three were to the theater many years ago. First to make his mark on the theater was Aeschylus, born in Eleusis in 525 BCE, who was the winner of the Dionysian Festival Contest thirteen times and has been called the “Father of Tragedy”. Aeschylus significantly changed the way the plays were performed as he added a second actor and started having the chorus and the actors interact. He is said to have written around 90 plays, seven of which have survived, the most notable works being The Persians, Seven Against Thebes, and The Suppliants. Because he had experience in battle during the Persian War, many of Aeschylus’s plays had to do with war, rather than social…show more content… After Aeschylus added a second actor, Sophocles followed with a third actor and is considered the first person to really use scenery in performances. At the Dionysian Festivals, Sophocles won about 18 times and if he did not win, he often finished in second place. Sophocles wrote Oedipus the King, Antigone, and Ajax and is credited with about 120 plays, seven of which survived. Aristotle considered Sophocles’ Oedipus the King an example of the ideal tragedy in The Poetics. When it comes to the subject matter of these works, Sophocles wrote about royalty and gods, just as many playwrights at the time did, but he also wrote about some internal struggles in the minds of both men and women, giving the women a greater role in plays, only to be expanded by his follower,