In the time of Photius the poets usually studied at school were Homer, Hesiod, Pindar; certain select plays of Aeschylus (Prometheus, Septem and Persae), Sophocles (Ajax, Electra and Oedipus Tyrannus), and Euripides (Hecuba, Orestes, Phoenissae, and, next to these, Alcestis, Andromache, Hippolytus, Medea, Rhesus, Troades,) also Aristophanes (beginning with the Plutus), Theocritus, Lycophron, and Dionysius Periegetes.
Sophocles describes in his Oedipus Tyrannus how Oedipus was resolved to pursue to the end the mystery of the death of Laius, and thus unravelled the dark tale, and in horror put out his own eyes.
To this end he "added some touches where surviving tradition seemed to contain trustworthy additional particulars," such as the statement that Paul taught in the lecture-room of Tyrannus " from the fifth to the tenth hour."