Creon

Creon belongs to the royal house of Thebes. Apollodorus says Laius was buried by Damasistratus, king of Plataea, and that Creon, son of Menoeceus, then succeeded to the kingdom. The Sphinx came in his reign (Library 3.5.8). In Euripides's Phoenissae, Jocasta calls Creon her brother. She says that after her husband's death Creon proclaimed her hand as the prize for whoever guessed the Sphinx's riddle, and that her son Oedipus guessed it and became king (Phoenissae 45-50).

Creon returns to power after the war told in Seven Against Thebes. Apollodorus says that once he held the kingdom he cast out the Argive dead unburied. He proclaimed that nobody should bury them and set watchmen over the bodies (Library 3.7.1). Pausanias gives the same refusal a Theban date. He says Creon ruled as guardian of Laodamas, son of Eteocles, when he would not let the relatives bury their dead. Adrastus then appealed to Theseus, and the Athenians fought the Boeotians (Description of Greece 1.39.2).

Sophocles narrows the order to one corpse. Antigone tells her sister that Creon has granted honored burial to one brother and unburied shame to the other. No one may bury or mourn Polynices (Antigone 21-38). Creon answers her defiance by saying he will take her down a deserted path and entomb her alive in a rocky vault, with only a small ration of food (Antigone 773-780). The seer Tiresias comes to warn him, and the Furies are said to lie in wait for him (Antigone 988-1090; 1064-1076). A messenger tells how Antigone was found hanged and how Haemon died beside her (Antigone 1192-1240). Creon's wife Eurydice strikes herself down at the altar after mourning her son Megareus (Antigone 1301-1305). The play ends with the chorus saying that the great words of arrogant men are repaid with great blows (Antigone 1348-1353).

Creon has another son in the sources. Pausanias saw the tomb of Menoeceus, son of Creon, near the Neistan gate at Thebes. He says Menoeceus killed himself in obedience to an oracle from Delphi when Polynices and the Argive host arrived (Description of Greece 9.25.1). In Euripides's Phoenissae, Tiresias addresses Menoeceus, son of Creon, by name (Phoenissae 834-959).

A second Creon rules Corinth. Apollodorus says Jason and Medea lived in Corinth for ten years, until Creon, king of Corinth, betrothed his daughter Glauce to Jason, who married her and divorced Medea. Medea sent the bride a poisoned robe, and Glauce was consumed by fire along with her father (Library 1.9.28). In Euripides's Medea, Creon orders Medea to leave the land at once, taking her two children (Medea 271-276). The sources checked here give the Corinthian king no link to Thebes.