Chapter XIV: Legends of Thebes

The Bœôtians generally, throughout the historical age, though well endowed with bodily strength and courage,[617] are represented as proverbially deficient in intelligence, taste and fancy. But the legendary population of Thêbes, the Kadmeians, are rich in mythical antiquities, divine as well as heroic. Both Dionysus and Hêraklês recognize Thêbes as their natal city. Moreover, the two sieges of Thêbes by Adrastus, even taken apart from Kadmus, Antiopê, Amphiôn and Zethus, etc., are the most prominent and most characteristic exploits, next to the siege of Troy, of that preëxisting race of heroes who lived in the imagination of the historical Hellênes.

[617] The eponym Bœôtus is son of Poseidôn and Arnê (Euphorion
ap. Eustath. ad Iliad. ii. 507). It was from Arnê in Thessaly
that the Bϙtians were said to have come, when they invaded
and occupied Bœôtia. Euripidês made him son of Poseidôn and
Melanippê. Another legend recited Bœôtus and Hellên as sons of
Poseidôn and Antiopê (Hygin. f. 157-186).

The Tanagræan poetess Korinna (the rival of Pindar, whose
compositions in the Bϙtian dialect are unfortunately lost)
appears to have dwelt upon this native Bϙtian genealogy: she
derived the Ogygian gates of Thêbes from Ogygus, son of Bœôtus
(Schol. Apollôn. Rhod. iii. 1178), also the Fragments of Korinna
in Schneidewin’s edition, fr. 2. p. 432.

It is not Kadmus, but the brothers Amphiôn and Zethus, who are given to us in the Odyssey as the first founders of Thêbes and the first builders of its celebrated walls. They are the sons of Zeus by Antiopê, daughter of Asôpus. The scholiasts who desire to reconcile this tale with the more current account of the foundation of Thêbes by Kadmus, tell us that after the death of Amphiôn and Zethus, Eurymachus, the warlike king of the Phlegyæ, invaded and ruined the newly-settled town, so that Kadmus on arriving was obliged to re-found it.[618] But Apollodôrus, and seemingly the older logographers before him, placed Kadmus at the top, and inserted the two brothers at a lower point in the series. According to them, Bêlus and Agenôr were the sons of Epaphus, son of the Argeian Iô, by Libya. Agenôr went to Phœnicia and there became king: he had for his offspring Kadmus, Phœnix, Kilix, and a daughter Eurôpa; though in the Iliad Eurôpa is called daughter of Phœnix.[619] Zeus fell in love with Eurôpa, and assuming the shape of a bull, carried her across the sea upon his back from Egypt to Krête, where she bore to him Minôs, Rhadamanthus and Sarpêdôn. Two out of the three sons sent out by Agenôr in search of their lost sister, wearied out by a long-protracted as well as fruitless voyage, abandoned the idea of returning home: Kilix settled in Kilikia, and Kadmus in Thrace.[620] Thasus, the brother or nephew of Kadmus, who had accompanied them in the voyage, settled and gave name to the island of Phasus.

[618] Homer, Odyss. xi. 262, and Eustath. _ad loc._ Compare
Schol. ad Iliad. xiii. 301.

[619] Iliad, xiv. 321. Iô is κερόεσσα προμάτωρ of the Thêbans.
Eurip. Phœniss. 247-676.

[620] Apollodôr. ii. 1, 3; iii. 1, 8. In the Hesiodic poems
(ap. Schol. Apoll. Rhod. ii. 178), Phœnix was recognized as son
of Agenôr. Pherekydês also described both Phœnix and Kadmus as
sons of Agenôr (Pherekyd. Fragm. 40, Didot). Compare Servius
ad. Virgil. Æneid. 1. 338. Pherekydês expressly mentioned
Kilix (Apollod. _ib._). Besides the Εὐρώπεια of Stesichorus
(see Stesichor. Fragm. xv. p. 73, ed. Kleine), there were
several other ancient poems on the adventures of Europa; one in
particular by Eumêlus (Schol. ad Iliad. vi. 138), which however
can hardly be the same as the τὰ ἔπη τὰ εἰς Εὐρώπην alluded to by
Pausanias (ix. 5, 4). See Wüllner de Cyclo Epico, p. 57 (Münster
1825).

Both Herodotus and Euripidês represent Kadmus as an emigrant from Phœnicia, conducting a body of followers in quest of Eurôpa. The account of Apollodôrus describes him as having come originally from Libya or Egypt to Phœnicia: we may presume that this was also the statement of the earlier logographers Pherekydês and Hellanikus. Conôn, who historicizes and politicizes the whole legend, seems to have found two different accounts; one connecting Kadmus with Egypt, another bringing him from Phœnicia. He tries to melt down the two into one, by representing that the Phœnicians, who sent out Kadmus, had acquired great power in Egypt—that the seat of their kingdom was the Egyptian Thêbes—that Kadmus was despatched, under pretence indeed of finding his lost sister, but really on a project of conquest—and that the name Thêbes, which he gave to his new establishment in Bœôtia, was borrowed from Thêbes in Egypt, his ancestorial seat.[621]

[621] Conôn, Narrat. 37. Perhaps the most remarkable thing of all
is the tone of unbounded self-confidence with which Conôn winds
up this tissue of uncertified suppositions—περὶ μὲν Κάδμου καὶ
Θηβῶν οἰκίσεως οὗτος ὁ ἀληθὴς λόγος· τὸ δὲ ἄλλο μῦθος καὶ γοητεία
ἀκοῆς.

Kadmus went from Thrace to Delphi to procure information respecting his sister Eurôpa, but the god directed him to take no further trouble about her; he was to follow the guidance of a cow, and to found a city on the spot where the animal should lie down. The condition was realized on the site of Thêbes. The neighboring fountain Areia was guarded by a fierce dragon, the offspring of Arês, who destroyed all the persons sent to fetch water. Kadmus killed the dragon, and at the suggestion of Athênê sowed his teeth in the earth:[622] there sprang up at once the armed men called the Sparti, among whom he flung stones, and they immediately began to assault each other until all were slain except five. Arês, indignant at this slaughter, was about to kill Kadmus; but Zeus appeased him, condemning Kadmus to an expiatory servitude of eight years, after which he married Harmonia, the daughter of Arês and Aphroditê—presenting to her the splendid necklace fabricated by the hand of Hêphæstos, which had been given by Zeus to Eurôpa.[623] All the gods came to the Kadmeia, the citadel of Thêbes, to present congratulations and gifts at these nuptials, which seem to have been hardly less celebrated in the mythical world than those of Pêleus and Thetis. The issue of the marriage was one son, Polydôrus, and four daughters, Autonoê, Inô, Semelê and Agavê.[624]

[622] Stesichor. (Fragm. 16; Kleine) ap. Schol. Eurip. Phœniss.
680. The place where the heifer had lain down was still shown in
the time of Pausanias (ix. 12, 1).

Lysimachus, a lost author who wrote Thebaïca, mentioned Eurôpa
as having come with Kadmus to Thêbes, and told the story in many
other respects very differently (Schol. Apoll. Rhod. iii. 1179).

[623] Apollodôr. iii. 4, 1-3. Pherekydês gave this account of
the necklace, which seems to imply that Kadmus must have found
his sister Eurôpa. The narrative here given is from Hellanikus;
that of Pherekydês differed from it in some respects: compare
Hellanik. Fragm. 8 and 9, and Pherekyd. Frag. 44. The resemblance
of this story with that of Jasôn and Æêtês (see above, chap.
xiii. p. 237) will strike everyone. It is curious to observe how
the old logographer Pherekydês explained this analogy in his
narrative; he said that Athênê had given half the dragon’s teeth
to Kadmus and half to Æêtês (see Schol. Pindar. Isthm. vi. 13).

[624] Hesiod, Theogon. 976. Leukothea, the sea-goddess, daughter
of Kadmus, is mentioned in the Odyssey, v. 334; Diodôr. iv. 2.

From the five who alone survived of the warriors sprung from the dragon’s teeth, arose five great families or gentes in Thêbes; the oldest and noblest of its inhabitants, coeval with the foundation of the town. They were called Sparti, and their name seems to have given rise, not only to the fable of the sowing of the teeth, but also to other etymological narratives.[625]

[625] Eurip. Phœniss. 680, with the Scholia; Pherekydês, Fragm.
44; Androtiôn, ap. Schol. Pindar. Isthm. vi. 13. Dionysius (?)
called the Sparti an ἔθνος Βοιωτίας (Schol. Phœniss. 1. c).

Even in the days of Plutarch, there were persons living who
traced their descent to the Sparti of Thêbes (Plutarch, Ser. Num.
Vindict. p. 563).

All the four daughters of Kadmus are illustrious in fabulous history. Inô, wife of Athamas, the son of Æolus, has already been included among the legends of the Æolids. Semelê became the mistress of Zeus, and inspired Hêrê with jealousy. Misguided by the malicious suggestions of that goddess, she solicited Zeus to visit her with all the solemnity and terrors which surrounded him when he approached Hêrê herself. The god unwillingly consented, and came in his chariot in the midst of thunder and lightning, under which awful accompaniments the mortal frame of Semelê perished. Zeus, taking from her the child of which she was pregnant, sewed it into his own thigh: after the proper interval the child was brought out and born, and became the great god Dionysus or Bacchus. Hermês took him to Inô and Athamas to receive their protection. Afterwards, however, Zeus having transformed him into a kid to conceal him from the persecution of Hêrê, the nymphs of the mountain Nysa became his nurses.[626]

[626] Apollodôr. iii. 4, 2-9; Diodôr. iv. 2.

Autonoê, the third daughter of Kadmus, married the pastoral hero or god Aristæus, and was mother of Aktæôn, a devoted hunter and a favorite companion of the goddess Artemis. She however became displeased with him—either because he looked into a fountain while she was bathing and saw her naked—or according to the legend set forth by the poet Stesichorus, because he loved and courted Semelê—or according to Euripidês, because he presumptuously vaunted himself as her superior in the chase. She transformed him into a stag, so that his own dogs set upon and devoured him. The rock upon which Aktæôn used to sleep when fatigued with the chase, and the spring whose transparent waters had too clearly revealed the form of the goddess, were shown to Pausanias near Platæa, on the road to Megara.[627]

[627] See Apollodôr. iii. 4, 3; Stesichor. Fragm. xvii. Kleine;
Pausan. ix. 2, 3; Eurip. Bacch. 337; Diodôr. iv. 81. The old
logographer Akusilaus copied Stesichorus.

Upon this well-known story it is unnecessary to multiply
references. I shall however briefly notice the remarks made upon
it by Diodôrus and by Pausanias, as an illustration of the manner
in which the literary Greeks of a later day dealt with their old
national legends.

Both of them appear implicitly to believe the fact, that Aktæôn
was devoured by his own dogs, but they differ materially in the
explanation of it.

Diodôrus accepts and vindicates the miraculous interposition
of the displeased goddess to punish Aktæôn, who, according
to one story, had boasted of his superiority in the chase to
Artemis,—according to another story, had presumed to solicit the
goddess in marriage, emboldened by the great numbers of the feet
of animals slain in the chase which he had hung up as offerings
in her temple. “It is not improbable (observes Diodôrus) that
the goddess was angry on both these accounts. For whether Aktæôn
abused these hunting presents so far as to make them the means
of gratifying his own desires towards one unapproachable in
wedlock, or whether he presumed to call himself an abler hunter
than her with whom the gods themselves will not compete in this
department,—in either case the wrath of the goddess against him
was just and legitimate (ὁμολογουμένην καὶ δικαίαν ὀργὴν ἔσχε
πρὸς αὐτὸν ἡ θεός). With perfect propriety therefore (Καθόλου δὲ
πιθανῶς) was he transformed into an animal such as those he had
hunted, and torn to pieces by the very dogs who had killed them.”
(Didot. iv. 80.)

Pausanias, a man of exemplary piety, and generally less inclined
to scepticism than Diodôrus, thinks the occasion unsuitable for
a miracle or special interference. Having alluded to the two
causes assigned for the displeasure of Artemis (they are the two
first-mentioned in my text, and distinct from the two noticed
by Diodôrus), he proceeds to say, “But I believe that the dogs
of Aktæôn went mad, without the interference of the goddess: in
this state of madness they would have torn in pieces without
distinction any one whom they met (Paus. ix. 2, 3. ἐγὼ δὲ ἄνευ
θεοῦ πείθομαι νόσον λύσσαν ἐπιβαλεῖν τοῦ Ἀκταίωνος τοὺς κύνας).”
He retains the truth of the final catastrophe, but rationalizes
it, excluding the special intervention of Artemis.

Agavê, the remaining daughter of Kadmus, married Echiôn, one of the Sparti. The issue of these nuptials was Pentheus, who, when Kadmus became old succeeded him as king of Thêbes. In his reign Dionysus appeared as a god, the author or discoverer of the vine with all its blessings. He had wandered over Asia, India and Thrace, at the head of an excited troop of female enthusiasts—communicating and inculcating everywhere the Bacchic ceremonies, and rousing in the minds of women that impassioned religious emotion which led them to ramble in solitary mountains at particular seasons, there to give vent to violent fanatical excitement, apart from the men, clothed in fawn-skins and armed with the thyrsus. The obtrusion of a male spectator upon these solemnities was esteemed sacrilegious. Though the rites had been rapidly disseminated and fervently welcomed in many parts of Thrace, yet there were some places in which they had been obstinately resisted and their votaries treated with rudeness; especially by Lykurgus, king of the Edonian Thracians, upon whom a sharp and exemplary punishment was inflicted by Dionysus.

Thêbes was the first city of Greece to which Dionysus came, at the head of his Asiatic troop of females, to obtain divine honors and to establish his peculiar rites in his native city. The venerable Kadmus, together with his daughters and the prophet Teiresias, at once acknowledged the divinity of the new god, and began to offer their worship and praise to him along with the solemnities which he enjoined. But Pentheus vehemently opposed the new ceremonies, reproving and maltreating the god who introduced them: nor was his unbelief at all softened by the miracles which Dionysus wrought for his own protection and for that of his followers. His mother Agavê, with her sisters, and a large body of other women from Thêbes, had gone out from Thêbes to Mount Kithærôn to celebrate their solemnities under the influence of the Bacchic frenzy. Thither Pentheus followed to watch them, and there the punishment due to his impiety overtook him. The avenging touch of the god having robbed him of his senses, he climbed a tall pine for the purpose of overlooking the feminine multitude, who detected him in this position, pulled down the tree, and tore him in pieces. Agavê, mad and bereft of consciousness, made herself the foremost in this assault, and carried back in triumph to Thêbes the head of her slaughtered son. The aged Kadmus, with his wife Harmonia, retired among the Illyrians, and at the end of their lives were changed into serpents, Zeus permitting them to be transferred to the Elysian fields.[628]

[628] Apollod. iii. 5, 3-4; Theocrit. Idyll. xxvi. Eurip. Bacch.
_passim_. Such is the tragical plot of this memorable drama. It
is a striking proof of the deep-seated reverence of the people
of Athens for the sanctity of the Bacchic ceremonies, that they
could have borne the spectacle of Agavê on the stage with her
dead son’s head, and the expressions of triumphant sympathy in
her action on the part of the Chorus (1168), Μάκαιρ᾽ Ἀγαύη! This
drama, written near the close of the life of Euripidês, and
exhibited by his son after his death (Schol. Aristoph. Ran. 67,),
contains passages strongly inculcating the necessity of implicit
deference to ancestorial authority in matters of religion, and
favorably contrasting the uninquiring faith of the vulgar with
the dissenting and inquisitive tendencies of superior minds: see
v. 196; compare vv. 389 and 422.—

Οὐδὲν σοφιζόμεσθα τοῖσι δαίμοσιν.
Πατρίους παραδοχὰς, ἅς θ᾽ ὁμήλικας χρόνῳ
Κεκτήμεθ᾽, οὐδεὶς αὐτὰ καταβαλεῖ λόγος,
Οὐδ᾽ ἢν δι᾽ ἄκρων τὸ σοφὸν εὕρηται φρένων.

Such reproofs “insanientis sapientiæ” certainly do not fall in
with the plot of the drama itself, in which Pentheus appears as
a Conservative, resisting the introduction of the new religious
rites. Taken in conjunction with the emphatic and submissive
piety which reigns through the drama, they countenance the
supposition of Tyrwhitt, that Euripidês was anxious to repel the
imputations, so often made against him, of commerce with the
philosophers and participation in sundry heretical opinions.

Pacuvius in his Pentheus seems to have closely copied Euripidês;
see Servius ad Virg. Æneid. iv. 469.

The old Thespis had composed a tragedy on the subject of
Pentheus: Suidas, Θέσπις; also Æschylus; compare his Eumenidês,
25.

According to Apollodôrus (iii. 5, 5), Labdakus also perished in a
similar way to Pentheus, and from the like impiety,—ἐκείνῳ φρονῶν
παραπλήσια.

Polydôrus and Labdakus successively became kings of Thêbes: the latter at his death left an infant son, Laius, who was deprived of his throne by Lykus. And here we approach the legend of Antiopê, Zêthus and Amphiôn, whom the fabulists insert at this point of the Thêban series. Antiopê is here the daughter of Nykteus, the brother of Lykus. She is deflowered by Zeus, and then, while pregnant, flies to Epôpeus king of Sikyôn: Nykteus dying entreats his brother to avenge the injury, and Lykus accordingly invades Sikyôn, defeats and kills Epôpeus, and brings back Antiopê prisoner to Thêbes. In her way thither, in a cave near Eleutheræ, which was shown to Pausanias,[629] she is delivered of the twin sons of Zeus—Amphiôn and Zêthus—who, exposed to perish, are taken up and nourished by a shepherd, and pass their youth amidst herdsmen, ignorant of their lofty descent.

[629] Pausan. i. 38, 9.

Antiopê is conveyed to Thêbes, where, after undergoing a long persecution from Lykus and his cruel wife Dirkê, she at length escapes, and takes refuge in the pastoral dwelling of her sons, now grown to manhood. Dirkê pursues and requires her to be delivered up; but the sons recognize and protect their mother, taking an ample revenge upon her persecutors. Lykus is slain, and Dirkê is dragged to death, tied to the horns of a bull.[630] Amphiôn and Zêthus, having banished Laius, become kings of Thêbes. The former, taught by Hermês, and possessing exquisite skill on the lyre, employs it in fortifying the city, the stones of the walls arranging themselves spontaneously in obedience to the rhythm of his song.[631]

[630] For the adventures of Antiopê and her sons, see Apollodôr.
iii. 5; Pausan. ii. 6, 2; ix. 5, 2.

The narrative given respecting Epôpeus in the ancient Cyprian
verses seems to have been very different from this, as far as we
can judge from the brief notice in Proclus’s Argument,—ὡς Ἐπωπεὺς
φθείρας τὴν Λυκούργου (Λύκου) γυναῖκα ἐξεπορθήθη: it approaches
more nearly to the story given in the seventh fable of Hyginus,
and followed by Propertius (iii. 15); the eighth fable of Hyginus
contains the tale of Antiopê as given by Euripidês and Ennius.
The story of Pausanias differs from both.

The Scholiast ad Apollôn. Rhod. i. 735. says that there were
two persons named Antiopê; one, daughter of Asôpus, the other,
daughter of Nykteus. Pausanias is content with supposing one
only, really the daughter of Nykteus, but there was a φήμη
that she was daughter of Asôpus (ii. 6, 2). Asius made Antiopê
daughter of Asôpus, and mother (both by Zeus and by Epôpeus: such
a junction of divine and human paternity is of common occurrence
in the Greek legends) of Zêthus and Amphiôn (ap. Paus. 1. c).

The contradictory versions of the story are brought together,
though not very perfectly, in Sterk’s Essay De Labdacidarum
Historiâ, p. 38-43 (Leyden, 1829).

[631] This story about the lyre of Amphiôn is not noticed in
Homer, but it was narrated in the ancient ἔπη ἐς Εὐρώπην which
Pausanias had read: the wild beasts as well as the stones were
obedient to his strains (Paus. ix. 5, 4). Pherekydês also
recounted it (Pherekyd. Fragm. 102, Didot). The tablet of
inscription (Ἀναγραφὴ) at Sikyôn recognized Amphiôn as the first
composer of poetry and harp-music (Plutarch, de Musicâ, c. 3. p.
1132).

Zêthus marries Aêdôn, who, in the dark and under a fatal mistake, kills her son Itylus: she is transformed into a nightingale, while Zêthus dies of grief.[632] Amphiôn becomes the husband of Niobê, daughter of Tantalus, and the father of a numerous offspring, the complete extinction of which by the hands of Apollo and Artemis has already been recounted in these pages.

[632] The tale of the wife and son of Zêthus is as old as the
Odyssey (xix. 525). Pausanias adds the statement that Zêthus died
of grief (ix. 5, 5; Pherekydês, Fragm. 102, Did.). Pausanias,
however, as well as Apollodôrus, tells us that Zêthus married
Thêbê, from whom the name Thêbes was given to the city. To
reconcile the conflicting pretensions of Zêthus and Amphiôn with
those of Kadmus, as founders of Thêbes, Pausanias supposes that
the latter was the original settler of the hill of the Kadmeia,
while the two former extended the settlement to the lower city
(ix. 5, 1-3).

Here ends the legend of the beautiful Antiopê and her twin sons—the rude and unpolished, but energetic, Zêthus—and the refined and amiable, but dreamy, Amphiôn. For so Euripidês, in the drama of Antiopê unfortunately lost, presented the two brothers, in affectionate union as well as in striking contrast.[633] It is evident that the whole story stood originally quite apart from the Kadmeian family, and so the rudiments of it yet stand in the Odyssey; but the logographers, by their ordinary connecting artifices, have opened a vacant place for it in the descending series of Thêban mythes. And they have here proceeded in a manner not usual with them. For whereas they are generally fond of multiplying entities, and supposing different historical personages of the same name, in order to introduce an apparent smoothness in the chronology—they have here blended into one person Amphiôn the son of Antiopê and Amphiôn the father of Chlôris, who seem clearly distinguished from each other in the Odyssey. They have further assigned to the same person all the circumstances of the legend of Niobê, which seems to have been originally framed quite apart from the sons of Antiopê.

[633] See Valckenaer. Diatribe in Eurip. Reliq. cap. 7, p. 58;
Welcker, Griechisch. Tragöd. ii. p. 811. There is a striking
resemblance between the Antiopê of Euripidês and the Tyrô of
Sophoklês in many points.

Plato in his Gorgias has preserved a few fragments, and a
tolerably clear general idea of the characters of Zêthus and
Amphiôn (Gorg. 90-92); see also Horat. Epist. i. 18, 42.

Both Livius and Pacuvius had tragedies on the scheme of this of
Euripidês, the former seemingly a translation.

Amphiôn and Zêthus being removed, Laius became king of Thêbes. With him commences the ever-celebrated series of adventures of Œdipus and his family. Laius forewarned by the oracle that any son whom he might beget would kill him, caused Œdipus as soon as he was born to be exposed on Mount Kithærôn. Here the herdsmen of Polybus king of Corinth accidentally found him and conveyed him to their master, who brought him up as his own child. In spite of the kindest treatment, however, Œdipus when he grew up found himself exposed to taunts on the score of his unknown parentage, and went to Delphi to inquire of the god the name of his real father. He received for answer an admonition not to go back to his country; if he did so, it was his destiny to kill his father and become the husband of his mother. Knowing no other country but Corinth, he accordingly determined to keep away from that city, and quitted Delphi by the road towards Bœôtia and Phôkis. At the exact spot where the roads leading to these two countries forked, he met Laius in a chariot drawn by mules, when the insolence of one of the attendants brought on an angry quarrel, in which Œdipus killed Laius, not knowing him to be his father. The exact place where this event happened, called the Divided Way[634], was memorable in the eyes of all literary Greeks, and is specially adverted to by Pausanias in his periegesis.

[634] See the description of the locality in K. O. Müller
(Orchomenos, c. i. p. 37).

The tombs of Laius and his attendant were still seen there in the
days of Pausanias (x. 5, 2).

On the death of Laius, Kreôn, the brother of Jokasta, succeeded to the kingdom of Thêbes. At this time the country was under the displeasure of the gods, and was vexed by a terrible monster, with the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the tail of a lion, called the Sphinx[635]—sent by the wrath of Hêrê and occupying the neighboring mountain of Phikium. The Sphinx had learned from the Muses a riddle, which she proposed to the Thêbans to resolve: on every occasion of failure she took away one of the citizens and ate him up. Still no person could solve the riddle; and so great was the suffering occasioned, that Kreôn was obliged to offer both the crown and the nuptials of his sister Jokasta to any one who could achieve the salvation of the city. At this juncture Œdipus arrived and solved the riddle: upon which the Sphinx immediately threw herself from the acropolis and disappeared. As a recompense for this service, Œdipus was made king of Thêbes, and married Jokasta, not aware that she was his mother.

[635] Apollodôr. iii. 5, 8. An author named Lykus, in his work
entitled _Thêbaïca_, ascribed this visitation to the anger of
Dionysus (Schol. Hesiod, Theogon. 326). The Sphinx (or _Phix_,
from the Bϙtian Mount Phikium) is as old as the Hesiodic
Theogony,—Φῖκ᾽ ὀλόην τέκε, Καδμείοισιν ὄλεθρον (Theog. 326).

These main tragical circumstances—that Œdipus had ignorantly killed his father and married his mother—belong to the oldest form of the legend as it stands in the Odyssey. The gods (it is added in that poem) quickly made the facts known to mankind. Epikasta (so Jokasta is here called) in an agony of sorrow hanged herself: Œdipus remained king of the Kadmeians, but underwent many and great miseries, such as the Erinnyes, who avenge an injured mother, inflict.[636] A passage in the Iliad implies that he died at Thêbes, since it mentions the funeral games which were celebrated there in honor of him. His misfortunes were recounted by Nestôr, in the old Cyprian verses, among the stories of aforetime.[637] A fatal curse hung both upon himself and upon his children, Eteoklês, Polynikês, Antigonê and Ismênê. According to that narrative which the Attic tragedians have rendered universally current, they were his children by Jokasta, the disclosure of her true relationship to him having been very long deferred. But the ancient epic called Œdipodia, treading more closely in the footsteps of Homer, represented him as having after her death married a second wife, Euryganeia, by whom the four children were born to him: and the painter Onatas adopted this story in preference to that of Sophoklês.[638]

[636] Odyss. xi. 270. Odysseus, describing what he saw in the
under-world, says,—

Μητέρα τ᾽ Οἰδιπόδαο ἴδον, καλὴν Ἐπικάστην,
Ἣ μέγα ἔργον ἔρεξεν αἰδρεΐῃσι νόοιο,
Γημαμένη ᾧ υἱεῖ· ὁ δ᾽ ὃν πατέρ᾽ ἐξεναρίξας
Γῆμεν· ἄφαρ δ᾽ ἀνάπυστα θεοὶ θέσαν ἀνθρώποισι.
Ἀλλ᾽ ὁ μὲν ἐν Θήβῃ πολυηράτῳ ἄλγεα πάσχων,
Καδμείων ἤνασσε, θεῶν ὀλοὰς διὰ βουλάς·
Ἡ δ᾽ ἔβη εἰς Αἰδάο πυλάρταο κρατεροῖο
Ἁψαμένη βρόχον αἰπὺν ἀφ᾽ ὑψήλοιο μελάθρου,
Ὧ ἄχεϊ σχομένη· τῷ δ᾽ ἄλγεα κάλλιπ᾽ ὀπίσσω
Πολλὰ μάλ᾽, ὅσσα τε μητρὸς Ἐριννύες ἐκτελέουσιν.

[637] Iliad, xxiii. 680, with the scholiast who cites Hesiod.
Proclus, Argum. ad Cypria, ap. Düntzer, Fragm. Epic. Græc. p. 10.
Νέστωρ δὲ ἐν παρεκβάσει διηγεῖται ... καὶ τὰ περὶ Οἰδίπουν, etc.

[638] Pausan. ix. 5, 5. Compare the narrative from Peisander in
Schol. ad Eurip. Phœniss. 1773; where, however, the blindness
of Œdipus seems to be unconsciously interpolated out of the
tragedians. In the old narrative of the Cyclic Thêbaïs, Œdipus
does not seem to be represented as blind (Leutsch, Thebaidis
Cyclici Reliquiæ, Götting. 1830, p. 42).

Pherekydês (ap. Schol. Eurip. Phœniss. 52) tells us that Œdipus
had three children by Jokasta, who were all killed by Erginus
and the Minyæ (this must refer to incidents in the old poems
which we cannot now recover); then the four celebrated children
by Euryganeia; lastly, that he married a third wife, Astymedusa.
Apollodôrus follows the narrative of the tragedians, but alludes
to the different version about Euryganeia,—εἰσὶ δ᾽ οἵ φασιν, etc.
(iii. 5, 8).

Hellanikus (ap. Schol. Eur. Phœniss. 59) mentioned the
self-inflicted blindness of Œdipus; but it seems doubtful whether
this circumstance was included in the narrative of Pherekydês.

The disputes of Eteoklês and Polynikês for the throne of their father gave occasion not only to a series of tragical family incidents, but also to one of the great quasi-historical events of legendary Greece—the two sieges of Thêbes by Adrastus, king of Argos. The two ancient epic poems called the Thêbaïs and the Epigoni (if indeed both were not parts of one very comprehensive poem) detailed these events at great length, and as it appears, with distinguished poetical merit; for Pausanias pronounces the Cyclic Thêbaïs (so it was called by the subsequent critics to distinguish it from the more modern Thêbaïs of Antimachus) inferior only to the Iliad and Odyssey; and the ancient elegiac poet Kallinus treated it as an Homeric composition.[639] Of this once-valued poem we unfortunately possess nothing but a few scanty fragments. The leading points of the legend are briefly glanced at in the Iliad; but our knowledge of the details is chiefly derived from the Attic tragedians, who transformed the narratives of their predecessors at pleasure, and whose popularity constantly eclipsed and obliterated the ancient version. Antimachus of Kolophôn, contemporary with Euripidês, in his long epic, probably took no less liberties with the old narrative. His Thêbaïd never became generally popular, but it exhibited marks of study and elaboration which recommended it to the esteem of the Alexandrine critics, and probably contributed to discredit in their eyes the old cyclic poem.

[639] Pausan. ix. 9. 3. Ἐποιήθη δὲ ἐς τὸν πόλεμον τοῦτον καὶ ἔπη,
Θηβαΐς· τὰ δὲ ἔπη ταῦτα Καλλῖνος, ἀφικόμενος αὐτῶν ἐς μνήμην,
ἔφησεν Ὅμηρον τὸν ποιήσαντα εἶναι. Καλλίνῳ δὲ πολλοί τε καὶ
ἄξιοι λόγου κατὰ ταῦτα ἔγνωσαν· ἐγὼ δὲ τὴν ποίησιν ταύτην μετά
γε Ἰλιάδα καὶ τὰ ἔπη τὰ ἐς Ὀδυσσέα ἐπαινῶ μάλιστα. The name in
the text of Pausanias stands Καλαῖνος, an unknown person: most of
the critics recognize the propriety of substituting Καλλῖνος, and
Leutsch and Welcker have given very sufficient reasons for doing
so.

The Ἀμφιάρεω ἐξελασία ἐς Θέβας, alluded to in the
pseudo-Herodotean life of Homer, seems to be the description of a
special passage in this Thêbaïs.

The logographers, who gave a continuous history of this siege of Thêbes, had at least three preëxisting epic poems—the Thêbaïs, the Œdipodia, and the Alkmæônis,—from which they could borrow. The subject was also handled in some of the Hesiodic poems, but we do not know to what extent.[640] The Thêbaïs was composed more in honor of Argos than of Thêbes, as the first line of it, one of the few fragments still preserved, betokens.[641]

[640] Hesiod, ap. Schol. Iliad. xxiii. 680, which passage does
not seem to me so much at variance with the incidents stated in
other poets as Leutsch imagines.

[641] Ἄργος ἄειδε, θεὰ, πολυδίψιον, ἔνθεν ἄνακτες (see Leutsch,
_ib._ c. 4. p. 29).

SIEGES OF THEBES.

The legend, about to recount fraternal dissension of the most implacable kind, comprehending in its results not only the immediate relations of the infuriated brothers, but many chosen companions of the heroic race along with them, takes its start from the paternal curse of Œdipus, which overhangs and determines all the gloomy sequel.

Œdipus, though king of Thêbes and father of four children by Euryganeia (according to the Œdipodia), has become the devoted victim of the Erinnyes, in consequence of the self-inflicted death of his mother, which he has unconsciously caused, as well as of his unintentional parricide. Though he had long forsworn the use of all the ornaments and luxuries which his father had inherited from his kingly progenitors, yet when through age he had come to be dependent upon his two sons, Polynikês one day broke through this interdict, and set before him the silver table and the splendid wine-cup of Kadmus, which Laius had always been accustomed to employ. The old king had no sooner seen these precious appendages of the regal life of his father, than his mind was overrun by a calamitous phrenzy, and he imprecated terrible curses on his sons, predicting that there would be bitter and endless warfare between them. The goddess Erinnys heard and heeded him; and he repeated the curse again on another occasion, when his sons, who had always been accustomed to send to him the shoulder of the victims sacrificed on the altar, caused the buttock to be served to him in place of it.[642] He resented this as an insult, and prayed the gods that they might perish each by the hand of the other. Throughout the tragedians as well as in the old epic, the paternal curse, springing immediately from the misguided Œdipus himself, but remotely from the parricide and incest with which he has tainted his breed, is seen to domineer over the course of events—the Erinnys who executes that curse being the irresistible, though concealed, agent. Æschylus not only preserves the fatal efficiency of the paternal curse, but even briefly glances at the causes assigned for it in the Thêbaïs, without superadding any new motives. In the judgment of Sophoklês, or of his audience, the conception of a father cursing his sons upon such apparently trifling grounds was odious; and that great poet introduced many aggravating circumstances, describing the old blind father as having been barbarously turned out of doors by his sons to wander abroad in exile and poverty. Though by this change he rendered his poem more coherent and self-justifying, yet he departed, from the spirit of the old legend, according to which Œdipus has contracted by his unconscious misdeeds an incurable taint destined to pass onward to his progeny. His mind is alienated, and he curses them, not because he has suffered seriously by their guilt, but because he is made the blind instrument of an avenging Erinnys for the ruin of the house of Laius.[643]

[642] Fragm. of the Thêbaïs, ap. Athenæ. xii. p. 465, ὅτι αὐτῷ
παρέθηκαν ἐκπώματα ἃ ἀπηγορεύκει, λέγων οὕτως·

Αὐτὰρ ὁ διογένης ἥρως ξανθὸς Πολυνείκης
Πρῶτα μὲν Οἰδίποδι καλὴν παρέθηκε τράπεζαν
Ἀργυρέην Κάδμοιο θεόφρονος· αὐταρ ἔπειτα
Χρύσεον ἔμπλησεν καλὸν δέπας ἥδεος οἴνου·
Αὐτὰρ ὅγ᾽ ὡς φράσθη παρακείμενα πατρὸς ἑοῖο
Τιμήεντα γέρα, μέγα οἱ κακὸν ἔμπεσε θυμῷ.
Αἶψα δὲ παισὶν ἑοῖσι μετ᾽ ἀμφοτέροισιν ἐπαρὰς
Ἀργαλέας ἠρᾶτο· θεὸν δ᾽ οὐ λάνθαν᾽ Ἐριννύν·
Ὡς οὐ οἱ πατρῷα γ᾽ ἐνὶ φιλότητι δάσαιντο,
Εἶεν δ᾽ αμφοτέροις αἰεὶ πόλεμοί τε μάχαι τε.

See Leutsch, Thebaid. Cycl. Reliq. p. 38.

The other fragment from the same Thêbaïs is cited by the Schol.
ad Soph. Œdip. Colon. 1378.—

Ἴσχιον ὡς ἐνόησε, χαμαὶ βάλεν, εἶπέ τε μῦθον·
Ὦ μοι ἐγὼ, παῖδές μοι ὀνειδείοντες ἔπεμψαν.
Εὐκτο Διῒ βασιλῆϊ καὶ ἄλλοις ἀθανάτοισι,
Χερσὶν ὑπ᾽ ἀλλήλων καταβήμεναι Ἄϊδος εἴσω.

Τὰ δὲ παραπλήσια τῷ ἐποποιῷ καὶ Αἴσχυλος ἐν τοῖς Ἕπτα ἐπι Θήβας.
In spite of the protest of Schutz, in his note, I think that the
scholiast has understood the words ἐπίκοτος τροφᾶς (Sept. ad
Theb. 787) in their plain and just meaning.

[643] The curses of Œdipus are very frequently and emphatically
dwelt upon both by Æschylus and Sophoklês (Sept. ad Theb. 70-586,
655-697, etc.; Œdip. Colon. 1293-1378). The former continues the
same point of view as the Thêbaïs, when he mentions—

... Τὰς περιθύμους
Κατάρας βλαψίφρονος Οἰδιπόδα (727);

or, λόγου τ᾽ ἄνοια καὶ φρενῶν Ἐριννύς (Soph. Antig. 584).

The Scholiast on Sophoklês (Œd. Col. 1378) treats the cause
assigned by the ancient Thêbaïs for the curse vented by Œdipus as
trivial and ludicrous.

The Ægeids at Sparta, who traced their descent to Kadmus,
suffered from terrible maladies which destroyed the lives of
their children; an oracle directed them to appease the Erinnyes
of Laius and Œdipus by erecting a temple, upon which the maladies
speedily ceased (Herodot. iv.).

After the death of Œdipus and the celebration of his funeral games, at which amongst others, Argeia, daughter of Adrastus (afterwards the wife of Polynikês), was present,[644] his two sons soon quarrelled respecting the succession. The circumstances are differently related; but it appears that, according to the original narrative, the wrong and injustice was on the part of Polynikês, who, however, was obliged to leave Thêbes and to seek shelter with Adrastus, king of Argos. Here he met Tydeus, a fugitive, at the same time, from Ætôlia: it was dark when they arrived, and a broil ensued between the two exiles, but Adrastus came out and parted them. He had been enjoined by an oracle to give his two daughters in marriage to a lion and a boar, and he thought this occasion had now arrived, inasmuch as one of the combatants carried on his shield a lion, the other a boar. He accordingly gave Deipylê in marriage to Tydeus, and Argeia to Polynikês: moreover, he resolved to restore by armed resistance both his sons-in-law to their respective countries.[645]

[644] Hesiod. ap. Schol. Iliad. xxiii. 680.

[645] Apollodôr. iii. 5, 9; Hygin. f. 69; Æschyl. Sept. ad Theb.
573. Hyginus says that Polynikês came clothed in the skin of a
lion, and Tydeus in that of a boar; perhaps after Antimachus, who
said that Tydeus had been brought up by swineherds (Antimach.
Fragm. 27, ed. Düntzer; ap. Schol. Iliad. iv. 400). Very
probably, however, the old Thêbaïs compared Tydeus and Polynikês
to a lion and a boar, on account of their courage and fierceness;
a simile quite in the Homeric character. Mnaseas gave the words
of the oracle (ap. Schol. Eurip. Phœniss. 411).

On proposing the expedition to the Argeian chiefs around him he found most of them willing auxiliaries; but Amphiaräus—formerly his bitter opponent, but now reconciled to him, and husband of his sister Eriphylê—strongly opposed him.[646] He denounced the enterprise as unjust and contrary to the will of the gods. Again, being of a prophetic stock, descended from Melampus, he foretold the certain death both of himself and of the principal leaders, should they involve themselves as accomplices in the mad violence of Tydeus or the criminal ambition of Polynikês. Amphiaräus, already distinguished both in the Kalydônian boar-hunt and in the funeral games of Pelias, was in the Thêban war the most conspicuous of all the heroes, and absolutely indispensable to its success. But his reluctance to engage in it was invincible, nor was it possible to prevail upon him except through the influence of his wife Eriphylê. Polynikês, having brought with him from Thêbes the splendid robe and necklace given by the gods to Harmonia on her marriage with Kadmus, offered it as a bribe to Eriphylê, on condition that she would influence the determination of Amphiaräus. The sordid wife, seduced by so matchless a present, betrayed the lurking-place of her husband, and involved him in the fatal expedition.[647] Amphiaräus, reluctantly dragged forth, and foreknowing the disastrous issue of the expedition both to himself and to his associates, addressed his last injunctions, at the moment of mounting his chariot, to his sons Alkmæôn and Amphilochus, commanding Alkmæôn to avenge his approaching death by killing the venal Eriphylê, and by undertaking a second expedition against Thêbes.

[646] See Pindar, Nem. ix. 30, with the instructive Scholium.

[647] Apollodôr. iii. 6, 2. The treachery of “the hateful
Eriphylê” is noticed in the Odyssey, xi. 327: Odysseus sees her
in the under-world along with the many wives and daughters of the
heroes.

The Attic dramatists describe this expedition as having been conducted by seven chiefs, one to each of the seven celebrated gates of Thêbes. But the Cyclic Thêbaïs gave to it a much more comprehensive character, mentioning auxiliaries from Arcadia, Messênê, and various parts of Peloponnêsus;[648] and the application of Tydeus and Polynikês at Mykênæ in the course of their circuit made to collect allies, is mentioned in the Iliad. They were well received at Mykênæ; but the warning signals given by the gods were so terrible that no Mykenæan could venture to accompany them.[649] The seven principal chiefs however were Adrastus, Amphiaräus, Kapaneus, Hippomedôn, Parthenopæus, Tydeus and Polynikês.[650] When the army had advanced as far as the river Asôpus, a halt was made for sacrifice and banquet; while Tydeus was sent to Thêbes as envoy to demand the restoration of Polynikês to his rights. His demand was refused; but finding the chief Kadmeians assembled at the banquet in the house of Eteoklês, he challenged them all to contend with him in boxing or wrestling. So efficacious was the aid of the goddess Athênê that he overcame them all; and the Kadmeians were so indignant at their defeat, that they placed an ambuscade of fifty men to intercept him in his way back to the army. All of them perished by the hand of this warrior, small in stature and of few words, but desperate and irresistible in the fight. One alone was spared, Mæon, in consequence of special signals from the gods.[651]

[648] Pausan. ii. 20, 4; ix. 9, 1. His testimony to this, as he
had read and admired the Cyclic Thêbaïs, seems quite sufficient,
in spite of the opinion of Welcker to the contrary (Æschylische
Trilogie. p. 375).

[649] Iliad, iv. 376.

[650] There are differences in respect to the names of the
seven: Æschylus (Sept. ad Theb. 461) leaves out Adrastus as one
of the seven, and includes Eteoklus instead of him; others left
out Tydeus and Polynikês, and inserted Eteoklus and Mekisteus
(Apollodôr. iii. 6, 3). Antimachus, in his poetical _Thêbaïs_,
called Parthenopæus an Argeian, not an Arcadian (Schol. ad
Æschyl. Sept. ad. Theb. 532).

[651] Iliad, iv. 381-400, with the Schol. The first celebration
of the Nemean games is connected with this march of the army
of Adrastus against Thêbes; they were celebrated in honor of
Archemorus, the infant son of Lykurgus, who had been killed by a
serpent while his nurse Hypsipylê went to show the fountain to
the thirsty Argeian chiefs (Apollod. iii. 6, 4; Schol. ad Pindar
Nem. 1).

The Kadmeians, assisted by their allies the Phôkians and the Phlegyæ, marched out to resist the invaders, and fought a battle near the Ismênian hill, in which they were defeated and forced to retire within the walls. The prophet Teiresias acquainted them that if Menœkeus, son of Kreôn, would offer himself as a victim to Arês, victory would be assured to Thêbes. The generous youth, as soon as he learnt that his life was to be the price of safely to his country, went and slew himself before the gates. The heroes along with Adrastus now commenced a vigorous attack upon the town, each of the seven selecting one of the gates to assault. The contest was long and strenuously maintained but the devotion of Menœkeus had procured for the Thêbans the protection of the gods. Parthenopæus was killed with a stone by Periklymenus; and when the furious Kapaneus, having planted a scaling-ladder, had mounted the walls, he was smitten by a thunderbolt from Zeus and cast down dead upon the earth. This event struck terror into the Argeians, and Adrastus called back his troops from the attack. The Thêbans now sallied forth to pursue them, when Eteoklês, arresting the battle, proposed to decide the controversy by single combat with his brother. The challenge, eagerly accepted by Polynikês, was agreed to by Adrastus: a single combat ensued between the two brothers, in which both were exasperated to fury and both ultimately slain by each other’s hand. This equal termination left the result of the general contest still undetermined, and the bulk of the two armies renewed the fight. In the sanguinary struggle which ensued the sons of Astakus on the Thêban side displayed the most conspicuous and successful valor. One of them,[652] Melanippus, mortally wounded Tydeus—while two others, Leades and Amphidikus, killed Eteoklus and Hippomedôn. Amphiaräus avenged Tydeus by killing Melanippus; but unable to arrest the rout of the army, he fled with the rest, closely pursued by Periklymenus. The latter was about to pierce him with his spear, when the beneficence of Zeus rescued him from this disgrace—miraculously opening the earth under him, so that Amphiaräus with his chariot and horses was received unscathed into her bosom.[653] The exact spot where this memorable incident happened was indicated by a sepulchral building, and shown by the Thêbans down to the days of Pausanias—its sanctity being attested by the fact, that no animal would consent to touch the herbage which grew within the sacred inclosure. Amphiaräus, rendered immortal by Zeus, was worshipped as a god at Argos, at Thêbes and at Orôpus—and for many centuries gave answers at his oracle to the questions of the pious applicant.[654]

[652] The story recounted that the head of Melanippus was brought
to Tydeus as he was about to expire of his wound, and that he
gnawed it with his teeth, a story touched upon by Sophoklês (apud
Herodian. in Rhetor. Græc. t. viii. p. 601, Walz.).

The lyric poet Bacchylidês (ap. Schol. Aristoph. Aves, 1535)
seems to have handled the story even earlier than Sophoklês.

We find the same allegation embodied in charges against real
historical men: the invective of Montanus against Aquilius
Regulus, at the beginning of the reign of Vespasian, affirmed,
“datam interfectori Pisonis pecuniam a Regulo, appetitumque morsu
Pisonis caput” (Tacit. Hist. iv. 42).

[653] Apollodôr. iii. 6, 8. Pindar, Olymp. vi. 11; Nem. ix.
13-27. Pausan. ix. 8, 2; 18, 2-4.

Euripidês, in the Phœnissæ (1122 _seqq._), describes the battle
generally; see also Æsch. S. Th. 392. It appears by Pausanias
that the Thêbans had poems or legends of their own, relative
to this war: they dissented in various points from the Cyclic
Thêbaïs (ix. 18, 4). The Thêbaïs said that Periklymenus had
killed Parthenopæus; the Thêbans assigned this exploit to
Asphodikus, a warrior not commemorated by any of the poets known
to us.

The village of Harma, between Tanagra and Mykalêssus, was
affirmed by some to have been the spot where Amphiaräus closed
his life (Strabo, ix. p. 404): Sophoklês placed the scene at the
Amphiaræium near Orôpus (ap Strabon. ix. p. 399).

[654] Pindar, Olymp. vi. 16. Ἕπτα δ᾽ ἔπειτα πυρᾶν νέκρων
τελεσθέντων Ταλαϊονίδας Εἶπεν ἐν Θήβαισι τοιοῦτόν τι ἔπος· Ποθέω
στρατιᾶς ὀφθαλμὸν ἐμᾶς Ἀμφότερον, μάντιν τ᾽ ἀγαθὸν καὶ δουρὶ
μάχεσθαι.

The scholiast affirms that these last expressions are borrowed by
Pindar from the Cyclic Thêbaïs.

The temple of Amphiaräus (Pausan. ii. 23, 2), his oracle,
seems to have been inferior in estimation only to that of
Delphi (Herodot. i. 52; Pausan. i. 34; Cicero, Divin. i. 40).
Crœsus sent a rich present to Amphiaräus, πυθόμενος αὐτοῦ
τήν τε ἀρετὴν καὶ τὴν πάθην (Herod. l. c); a striking proof
how these interesting legends were recounted and believed as
genuine historical facts. Other adventures of Amphiaräus in the
expedition against Thêbes were commemorated in the carvings on
the Thronus at Amyklæ (Pausan. iii. 18, 4).

Æschylus (Sept. Theb. 611) seems to enter into the Thêban view,
doubtless highly respectful towards Amphiaräus, when he places in
the mouth of the Kadmeian king Eteoklês such high encomiums on
Amphiaräus, and so marked a contrast with the other chiefs from
Argos.

Adrastus, thus deprived of the prophet and warrior whom he regarded as “the eye of his army,” and having seen the other chiefs killed in the disastrous fight, was forced to take flight singly, and was preserved by the matchless swiftness of his horse Areiôn, the offspring of Poseidôn. He reached Argos on his return, bringing with him nothing except “his garments of woe and his black-maned steed.”[655]

[655] Pausan. viii. 25, 5, from the Cyclic Thêbaïs, Εἵματα λυγρὰ
φέρων σὺν Ἀρείονι κυανοχαίτῃ; also Apollodôr. iii. 6, 8.

The celebrity of the horse Areiôn was extolled in the Iliad
(xxiii. 346), in the Cyclic Thêbaïs, and also in the Thêbaïs of
Antimachus (Pausan. l. c.): by the Arcadians of Thelpusia he
was said to be the offspring of Dêmêtêr by Poseidôn,—he, and
a daughter whose name Pausanias will not communicate to the
uninitiated (ἧς τὸ ὄνομα ἐς ἀτελέστους λέγειν οὐ νομίζουσι, _l.
c._). A different story is in the Schol. Iliad, xxiii. 346; and
in Antimachus, who affirmed that “Gæa herself had produced him,
as a wonder to mortal men” (see Antimach. Frag. 16. p. 102; Epic.
Græc. Frag. ed. Düntzer).

Kreôn, father of the heroic youth Menœkeus, succeeding to the administration of Thêbes after the death of the two hostile brothers and the repulse of Adrastus, caused Eteoklês to be buried with distinguished honor, but cast out ignominiously the body of Polynikês as a traitor to his country, forbidding every one on pain of death to consign it to the tomb. He likewise refused permission to Adrastus to inter the bodies of his fallen comrades. This proceeding, so offensive to Grecian feeling, gave rise to two further tales; one of them at least of the highest pathos and interest. Antigonê, the sister of Polynikês, heard with indignation the revolting edict consigning her brother’s body to the dogs and vultures, and depriving it of those rites which were considered essential to the repose of the dead. Unmoved by the dissuading counsel of an affectionate but timid sister, and unable to procure assistance, she determined to brave the hazard and to bury the body with her own hands. She was detected in the act; and Kreôn, though forewarned by Teiresias of the consequences, gave orders that she should be buried alive, as having deliberately set at naught the solemn edict of the city. His son Hæmôn, to whom she was engaged to be married, in vain interceded for her life. In an agony of despair he slew himself in the sepulchre to which the living Antigonê had been consigned; and his mother Eurydikê, the wife of Kreôn, inconsolable for his death, perished by her own hand. And thus the new light which seemed to be springing up over the last remaining scion of the devoted family of Œdipus, is extinguished amidst gloom and horrors—which overshadowed also the house and dynasty of Kreôn.[656]

[656] Sophokl. Antigon. 581. Νῦν γὰρ ἐσχάτας ὑπὲρ Ῥίζας ἐτέτατο
φάος ἐν Οἰδίπου δόμοις, etc.

The pathetic tale here briefly recounted forms the subject of
this beautiful tragedy of Sophoklês, the argument of which is
supposed by Boeckh to have been borrowed in its primary rudiments
from the Cyclic Thêbaïs or the Œdipodia (Boeckh, Dissertation
appended to his translation of the Antigonê, c. x. p. 146); see
Apollodôr. iii. 7, 1.

Æschylus also touches upon the heroism of Antigonê (Sep. Theb.
984).

The other tale stands more apart from the original legend, and seems to have had its origin in the patriotic pride of the Athenians. Adrastus, unable to obtain permission from the Thêbans to inter the fallen chieftains, presented himself in suppliant guise, accompanied by their disconsolate mothers, to Thêseus at Eleusis. He implored the Athenian warrior to extort from the perverse Thêbans that last melancholy privilege which no decent or pious Greeks ever thought of withholding, and thus to stand forth as the champion of Grecian public morality in one of its most essential points, not less than of the rights of the subterranean gods. The Thêbans obstinately persisting in their refusal, Thêseus undertook an expedition against their city, vanquished them in the field, and compelled them by force of arms to permit the sepulture of their fallen enemies. This chivalrous interposition, celebrated in one of the preserved dramas of Euripidês, formed a subject of glorious recollection to the Athenians throughout the historical age: their orators dwelt upon it in terms of animated panegyric; and it seems to have been accepted as a real fact of the past time, with not less implicit conviction than the battle of Marathôn.[657] But the Thêbans, though equally persuaded of the truth of the main story, dissented from the Athenian version of it, maintaining that they had given up the bodies for sepulture voluntarily and of their own accord. The tomb of the chieftains was shown near Eleusis even in the days of Pausanias.[658]

[657] Apollodôr. iii. 7, 1; Eurip. Supp. _passim_; Herodot. ix.
27; Plato, Menexen. c. 9; Lysias, Epitaph. c. 4; Isokrat. Orat.
Panegyr. p. 196, Auger.

[658] Pausan. i. 39, 2.

A large proportion both of the interesting persons and of the exalted acts of legendary Greece belongs to the female sex. Nor can we on this occasion pass over the name of Evadnê, the devoted widow of Kapaneus, who cast herself on the funeral pile of her husband and perished.[659]

[659] Eurip. Supplic. 1004-1110.

The defeat of the seven chiefs before Thêbes was amply avenged by their sons, again under the guidance of Adrastus:—Ægialeus son of Adrastus, Thersander son of Polynikês, Alkmæôn and Amphilochus, sons of Amphiaräus, Diomêdês son of Tydeus, Sthenelus son of Kapaneus, Promachus son of Parthenopæus, and Euryalus son of Mekistheus, joined in this expedition. Though all these youthful warriors, called the Epigoni, took part in the expedition, the grand and prominent place appears to have been occupied by Alkmæôn, son of Amphiaräus. Assistance was given to them from Corinth and Megara, as well as from Messênê and Arcadia; while Zeus manifested his favorable dispositions by signals not to be mistaken.[660] At the river Glisas the Epigoni were met by the Thêbans in arms, and a battle took place in which the latter were completely defeated. Laodamas, son of Eteoklês, killed Ægialeus, son of Adrastus; but he and his army were routed and driven within the walls by the valor and energy of Alkmæôn. The defeated Kadmeians consulted the prophet Teiresias, who informed them that the gods had declared for their enemies, and that there was no longer any hope of successful resistance. By his advice they sent a herald to the assailants offering to surrender the town, while they themselves conveyed away their wives and children, and fled under the command of Laodamas to the Illyrians,[661] upon which the Epigoni entered Thêbes, and established Thersander, son of Polynikês, on the throne.

[660] Homer, Iliad, iv. 406. Sthenelus, the companion of Diomêdês
and one of the Epigoni, says to Agamemnôn,—

Ἡμεῖς τοι πατέρων μέγ᾽ ἀμείνονες εὐχόμεθ᾽ εἶναι·
Ἡμεῖς καὶ Θήβης ἕδος εἵλομεν ἑπταπύλοιο,
Παυρότερον λαὸν ἀγαγόνθ᾽ ὑπὸ τεῖχος Ἄρειον,
Πειθόμενοι τεράεσσι θεῶν καὶ Ζηνὸς ἀρωγῇ·
Αὐτοὶ δὲ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο.

[661] Apollodôr. iii. 7, 4. Herodot. v. 57-61. Pausan. ix. 5, 7;
9, 2. Diodôr. iv. 65-66.

Pindar represents Adrastus as concerned in the second expedition
against Thêbes (Pyth. viii. 40-58).

Adrastus, who in the former expedition had been the single survivor amongst so many fallen companions, now found himself the only exception to the general triumph and joy of the conquerors: he had lost his son Ægialeus, and the violent sorrow arising from the event prematurely cut short his life. His soft voice and persuasive eloquence were proverbial in the ancient epic.[662] He was worshipped as a hero both at Argos and at Sikyôn, but with especial solemnity in the last-mentioned place, where his Herôum stood in the public agora, and where his exploits as well as his sufferings were celebrated periodically in lyric tragedies. Melanippus, son of Astakus, the brave defender of Thêbes, who had slain both Tydeus and Mekistheus, was worshipped with no less solemnity by the Thêbans.[663] The enmity of these two heroes rendered it impossible for both of them to be worshipped close upon the same spot. Accordingly it came to pass during the historical period, about the time of the Solonian legislation at Athens, that Kleisthenês, despot of Sikyôn, wishing to banish the hero Adrastus and abolish the religious solemnities celebrated in honor of the latter by the Sikyonians, first applied to the Delphian oracle for permission to carry this banishment into effect directly and forcibly. That permission being refused, he next sent to Thêbes an intimation that he was anxious to introduce their hero Melanippus into Sikyôn. The Thêbans willingly consented, and he assigned to the new hero a consecrated spot in the strongest and most commanding portion of the Sikyonian prytaneium. He did this (says the historian) “knowing that Adrastus would forthwith go away of his own accord; since Melanippus was of all persons the most odious to him, as having slain both his son-in-law and his brother.” Kleisthenês moreover diverted the festivals and sacrifices which had been offered to Adrastus, to the newly established hero Melanippus; and the lyric tragedies from the worship of Adrastus to that of Dionysus. But his dynasty did not long continue after his decease, and the Sikyonians then reëstablished their ancient solemnities.[664]

[662] Γλῶσσαν τ᾽ Ἀδρήστου μειλιχόγηρυν ἔχοι (Tyrtæus, Eleg. 9, 7,
Schneidewin); compare Plato, Phædr. c. 118. “Adrasti pallentis
imago” meets the eye of Æneas in the under-world (Æneid, vi. 480).

[663] About Melanippus, see Pindar, Nem. x. 36. His sepulchre was
shown near the Prœtid gates of Thêbes (Pausan. ix. 18, 1).

[664] This very carious and illustrative story is contained
in Herodot. v. 67. Ἐπεὶ δὲ ὁ θεὸς τοῦτο οὐ παρεδίδου, ἀπελθὼν
ὀπίσω (Kleisthenês, returning from Delphi) ἐφρόντιζε μηχανὴν
τῇ ~αὐτὸς ὁ Ἀδρήστος ἀπαλλάξεται~. Ὡς δὲ οἱ ἐξευρῆσθαι ἐδόκεε,
πέμψας ἐς Θήβας τὰς Βοιωτίας, ἔφη θέλειν ἐπαγαγέσθαι Μελάνιππον
τὸν Ἀστακοῦ· οἱ δὲ Θηβαῖοι ἔδοσαν. Ἐπηγάγετο δὲ τὸν Μελάνιππον
ὁ Κλεισθένης, καὶ γὰρ τοῦτο δεῖ ἀπηγήσασθαι, ὡς ἔχθιστον ἐόντα
Ἀδρήστῳ· ὃς τόν τε ἀδέλφεον Μηκιστέα ἀπεκτόνεε, καὶ τὸν γαμβρὸν
Τυδέα.

The Sikyonians (Herodotus says) τά τε δὴ ἄλλα ἐτίμων τὸν
Ἄδρηστον, καὶ πρὸς τὰ πάθεα αὐτοῦ τραγικοῖσι χόροισι ἐγέραιρον·
τὸν μὲν Διόνυσον οὐ τιμέωντες, τὸν δὲ Ἄδρηστον.

Adrastus was worshipped as a hero at Megara as well as at Sikyôn:
the Megarians affirmed that he had died there on his way back
from Thêbes (Pausan. i. 43, 1; Dieuchidas, ap. Schol. ad Pindar.
Nem. ix. 31). His house at Argos was still shown when Pausanias
visited the town (ii. 23, 2).

Near the Prœtid gate of Thêbes were seen the tombs of two combatants who had hated each other during life even more than Adrastus and Melanippus—the two brothers Eteoklês and Polynikês. Even as heroes and objects of worship, they still continued to manifest their inextinguishable hostility: those who offered sacrifices to them observed that the flame and the smoke from the two adjoining altars abhorred all communion, and flew off in directions exactly opposite. The Thêban exegetes assured Pausanias of this fact. And though he did not himself witness it, yet having seen with his own eyes a miracle not very dissimilar at Pioniæ in Mysia, he had no difficulty in crediting their assertion.[665]

[665] Pausan. ix. 18, 3. Τὰ ἐπ᾽ αὐτοῖς δρώμενα οὐ θεασάμενος
πιστὰ ὅμως ὑπείληφα εἶναι. Compare Hygin. f. 68.

“Et nova fraterno veniet concordia fumo,
Quem vetus accensâ separat ira pyrâ.” (Ovid, Ibis, 35.)

The tale was copied by Ovid from Kallimachus (Trist. v. 5, 38.)

Amphiaräus when forced into the first attack of Thêbes—against his own foreknowledge and against the warnings of the gods—had enjoined his sons Alkmæôn and Amphilochus not only to avenge his death upon the Thêbans, but also to punish the treachery of their mother, “Eriphylê, the destroyer of her husband.”[666] In obedience to this command, and having obtained the sanction of the Delphian oracle, Alkmæôn slew his mother;[667] but the awful Erinnys, the avenger of matricide, inflicted on him a long and terrible punishment, depriving him of his reason, and chasing him about from place to place without the possibility of repose or peace of mind. He craved protection and cure from the god at Delphi, who required him to dedicate at the temple, as an offering, the precious necklace of Kadmus, that irresistible bribe which had originally corrupted Eriphylê.[668] He further intimated to the unhappy sufferer, that though the whole earth was tainted with his crime, and had become uninhabitable for him, yet there was a spot of ground which was not under the eye of the sun at the time when the matricide was committed, and where therefore Alkmæôn yet might find a tranquil shelter. The promise was realized at the mouth of the river Achelôus, whose turbid stream was perpetually depositing new earth and forming additional islands. Upon one of these, near Œniadæ, Alkmæôn settled, permanently and in peace: he became the primitive hero of Akarnania, to which his son Akarnan gave name.[669] The necklace was found among the treasures of Delphi, together with that which had been given by Aphroditê to Helen, by the Phôkian plunderers who stripped the temple in the time of Philip of Macedôn. The Phôkian women quarrelled about these valuable ornaments: and we are told that the necklace of Eriphylê was allotted to a woman of gloomy and malignant disposition, who ended by putting her husband to death; that of Helen to a beautiful but volatile wife, who abandoned her husband from a preference for a young Epirot.[670]

[666] Ἀνδροδάμαντ᾽ Ἐριφύλην (Pindar, Nem. ix. 16). A poem
_Eryphilê_ was included among the mythical compositions of
Stesichorus: he mentioned in it that Asklêpius had restored
Kapaneus to life, and that he was for that reason struck dead
by thunder from Zeus (Stesichor. Fragm. Kleine, 18, p. 74). Two
tragedies of Sophoklês once existed, _Epigoni_ and _Alkmæôn_
(Welcker, Griechisch. Tragöd. i. p. 269): a few fragments also
remain of the Latin _Epigoni_ and _Alphesibæa_ of Attius: Ennius
and Attius both composed or translated from the Greek a Latin
_Alkmæôn_ (Poet. Scenic. Latin. ed. Both. pp. 33, 164, 198).

[667] Hyginus gives the fable briefly (f. 73; see also
Asclepiadês, ap. Schol. Odyss. xi. 326). In like manner, in the
case of the matricide of Orestês, Apollo not only sanctions,
but enjoins the deed; but his protection against the avenging
Erinnyês is very tardy, not taking effect until after Orestês has
been long persecuted and tormented by them (see Æschyl. Eumen.
76, 197 462).

In the _Alkmæôn_ of the later tragic writer Thodektês, a
distinction was drawn: the gods had decreed that Eriphylê should
die, but not that Alkmæôn should kill her (Aristot. Rhetoric.
ii. 24). Astydamas altered the story still more in his tragedy,
and introduced Alkmæôn as killing his mother ignorantly and
without being aware who she was (Aristot. Poetic. c. 27). The
murder of Eriphylê by her son was one of the παρειλήμμενοι
μῦθοι which could not be departed from; but interpretations
and qualifications were resorted to, in order to prevent it
from shocking the softened feelings of the spectators: see the
criticism of Aristotle on the _Alkmæôn_ of Euripidês (Ethic.
Nicom. iii. 1, 8).

[668] Ephorus ap. Athenæ. vi. p. 232.

[669] Thucyd. ii. 68-102.

[670] Athenæ. _l. c._

There were several other legends respecting the distracted Alkmæôn, either appropriated or invented by the Attic tragedians. He went to Phêgeus, king of Psôphis in Arcadia, whose daughter Arsinoê he married, giving as a nuptial present the necklace of Eriphylê. Being however unable to remain there, in consequence of the unremitting persecutions of the maternal Erinnys, he sought shelter at the residence of king Achelôus, whose daughter Kallirhoê he made his wife, and on whose soil he obtained repose.[671] But Kallirhoê would not be satisfied without the possession of the necklace of Eriphylê, and Alkmæôn went back to Psôphis to fetch it, where Phêgeus and his sons slew him. He had left twin sons, infants, with Kallirhoê, who prayed fervently to Zeus that they might be preternaturally invested with immediate manhood, in order to revenge the murder of their father. Her prayer was granted, and her sons Amphoterus and Akarnan, having instantaneously sprung up to manhood, proceeded into Arcadia, slew the murderers of their father, and brought away the necklace of Eriphylê, which they carried to Delphi.[672]

[671] Apollodôr. iii. 7, 5-6; Pausan. viii. 24, 4. These two
authors have preserved the story of the Akarnanians and the old
form of the legend, representing Alkmæôn as having found shelter
at the abode of the person or king Achelôus, and married his
daughter: Thucydidês omits the _personality_ of Achelôus, and
merely announces the wanderer as having settled on certain new
islands deposited by the river.

I may remark that this is a singularly happy adaptation of a
legend to an existing topographical fact. Generally speaking,
before any such adaptation can be rendered plausible, the legend
is of necessity much transformed; here it is taken exactly as it
stands, and still fits on with great precision.

Ephorus recounted the whole sequence of events as so much
political history, divesting it altogether of the legendary
character. Alkmæôn and Diomêdês, after having taken Thêbes with
the other Epigoni, jointly undertook an expedition into Ætôlia
and Akarnania: they first punished the enemies of the old Œneus,
grandfather of Diomêdês, and established the latter as king in
Kalydôn: next they conquered Akarnania for Alkmæôn. Alkmæôn,
though invited by Agamemnôn to join in the Trojan war, would not
consent to do so (Ephor. ap. Strabo. vii. p. 326; x. p. 462).

[672] Apollodôr. iii. 7, 7; Pausan. viii. 24, 3-4. His remarks
upon the mischievous longing of Kallirhoê for the necklace are
curious: he ushers them in by saying, that “many men, and still
more women, are given to fall into absurd desires,” etc. He
recounts it with all the _bonne foi_ which belongs to the most
assured matter of fact.

A short allusion is in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (ix. 412).

Euripidês deviated still more widely from the ancient epic, by making Alkmæôn the husband of Mantô, daughter of Teiresias, and the father of Amphilochus. According to the Cyclic Thêbaïs, Mantô was consigned by the victorious Epigoni as a special offering to the Delphian god; and Amphilochus was son of Amphiaräus, not son of Alkmæôn.[673] He was the eponymous hero of the town called the Amphilochian Argos, in Akarnania, on the shore of the Gulf of Ambrakia. Thucydidês tells us that he went thither on his return from the Trojan war, being dissatisfied with the state of affairs which he found at the Peloponnêsian Argos.[674] The Akarnanians were remarkable for the numerous prophets which they supplied to the rest of Greece: their heroes were naturally drawn from the great prophetic race of the Melampodids.

[673] Thêbaïd, Cy. Reliqu. p. 70, Leutsch; Schol. Apollôn. Rhod.
i. 408. The following lines cited in Athenæus (vii. p. 317) are
supposed by Boeckh, with probable reason, to be taken from the
Cyclic Thêbaïs; a portion of the advice of Amphiaräus to his sons
at the time of setting out on his last expedition,—

Πουλύποδός μοι, τέκνον, ἔχων νόον, Ἀμφίλοχ᾽ ἥρως,
Τοῖσιν ἐφαρμόζου, τῶν ἂν κατὰ δῆμον ἵκηαι.

There were two tragedies composed by Euripidês, under the
title of Ἀλκμαίων, ὁ διὰ Ψωφῖδος, and Ἀλκμαίων, ὁ διὰ Κορίνθου
(Dindorf, Fragm. Eurip. p. 77).

[674] Apollodôr. iii. 7, 7; Thucyd. ii. 68.

Thus ends the legend of the two sieges of Thêbes; the greatest event, except the siege of Troy, in the ancient epic; the greatest enterprise of war, between Greeks and Greeks, during the time of those who are called the Heroes.