The first great dramatists ( aeschylus , sophocles , aristophanes ) , the greatest sculptors in history ( phidias ) , and socrates all lived in athens in the 5th century bc .
The most brilliantly inventive of comic playwrights , aristophanes was happy to mock contemporary athenian politicians of every stripe . He was also the first to coin a word for " innovation " .
Sophocles ( 495-405 bc ) , was a giant of the golden age of greek civilisation , a dramatist who work alongside and competed with aeschylus , euripides and aristophanes .
