Seven Against Thebes
The Seven Against Thebes is the failed war that seven champions from Argos fought to put Polynices, son of Oedipus, on the Theban throne after his brother Eteocles refused to share it. Every champion except the Argive king Adrastus died, and the two brothers killed each other in single combat, fulfilling the curse their father had laid on them.
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What Led To It
The war is the last act of the house of Laius. Oedipus became king of Thebes by answering the Sphinx's riddle and married the widowed queen without knowing she was his mother. His sons Eteocles and Polynices inherited the throne and his curse. Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes frames the war as that inheritance: its chorus calls the brothers' strife the work of the Erinys, one of the Furies, fulfilling the curses Oedipus spoke, with iron as the stranger who divides their land.
The story is older than tragedy. Hesiod's Works and Days says part of the race of heroes died at seven-gated Thebe fighting for the flocks of Oedipus.
The Myth
The war begins with a father's curse. Apollodorus says that when Oedipus was driven from Thebes, he cursed his sons because they watched him go without lifting a hand to help. In Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus the curse is spoken aloud to Polynices: he will die by a kindred hand and kill the brother who drove him out.
The brothers tried to avoid it. Apollodorus reports that Eteocles and Polynices agreed to rule Thebes in alternate years, and that the sources disagree about who ruled first. In Euripides's Phoenician Women, Polynices goes into exile first, and Eteocles then refuses to give up the throne. Either way, Polynices ended up an exile in Argos, carrying with him the robe and necklace that Cadmus had once given his bride Harmonia. The necklace would decide the war.
At Argos, Polynices fought another exile, Tydeus of Calydon, at the palace door by night. King Adrastus parted them and remembered a seer's word that he should marry his daughters to a boar and a lion. Seeing a boar on one man's shield and a lion on the other's, Apollodorus says, he gave them his daughters and promised to restore both to their homelands.
The seer Amphiaraus foresaw that every leader except Adrastus would die, and refused to march. He had sworn to let his wife Eriphyle settle any quarrel between him and Adrastus. Polynices bribed her with the necklace, and she sent her husband to war. Homer's Odyssey already knows the outline: it names Eriphyle as the woman who took gold as the price of her own husband, and says Amphiaraus died at Thebes because of a woman's gifts.
On the march, the army stopped at Nemea, where a serpent killed the infant Opheltes while his nurse showed the soldiers to a spring. Amphiaraus read the death as an omen. Apollodorus says they renamed the child Archemorus and founded the Nemean games in his honour.
Before the fighting, Tydeus went into Thebes alone as an envoy. Homer's Iliad tells the episode twice. He found the Cadmeans feasting in the house of Eteocles, challenged them to contests and won every one with Athena's help. On his way back he killed all fifty men sent to ambush him except Maeon, whom he spared in obedience to the gods' signs.
Who the seven champions were depends on the source. Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes has a scout name one attacker at each gate: Tydeus, Capaneus, Eteoclus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Amphiaraus and Polynices. Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus gives the same seven, with Polynices listing himself last. Euripides's Phoenician Women drops Eteoclus and puts Adrastus himself at the seventh gate. Apollodorus also counts Adrastus among the seven, then notes that some writers drop Tydeus and Polynices and count Eteoclus and Mecisteus instead.
Thebes answered with a sacrifice. The blind seer Tiresias told the Thebans they would win if Creon's son Menoeceus gave himself freely to Ares, and Menoeceus killed himself before the gates. In the battle that followed, Capaneus was climbing a ladder onto the wall when Zeus struck him with a thunderbolt, and the Argives broke.
Eteocles and Polynices then fought a single combat for the kingdom and killed each other. Tydeus lay wounded by the Theban Melanippus. Athena was bringing him a remedy from Zeus that would have made him immortal. Amphiaraus hated Tydeus for pushing the war, so he cut off Melanippus's head and gave it to him. Tydeus split it open and swallowed the brains, and Athena, disgusted, withheld her gift.
Amphiaraus fled along the river Ismenus. Before Periclymenus could spear him in the back, Pindar says, Zeus split the earth with a thunderbolt and hid him in it with his horses and chariot. Apollodorus adds that Zeus made him immortal. Only Adrastus escaped, carried off by his divine horse Arion.
Homer knows how it ended. In the Iliad, Agamemnon taunts Diomedes as a lesser son of Tydeus, and Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, answers for the next generation, who took the city their fathers could not.
Son of Atreus, utter not lies, when thou knowest how to speak truly. We declare ourselves to be better men by far than our fathers: we took the seat of Thebe of the seven gates, when we twain had gathered a lesser host against a stronger wall, putting our trust in the portents of the gods and in the aid of Zeus; whereas they perished through their own blind folly. Wherefore I bid thee put not our fathers in like honour with us.
What Followed
Creon, now ruling Thebes, left the Argive dead unburied and forbade anyone to bury them. Apollodorus follows Sophocles here: Antigone buried Polynices secretly and was entombed alive for it. Adrastus fled to Athens and begged for the dead. The Athenians under Theseus took Thebes and gave the bodies to their families, and Capaneus's wife Evadne threw herself onto his pyre. Pausanias says the Thebans told it differently: they gave up the dead willingly and fought no battle.
Ten years later the sons of the fallen, the Epigoni, marched again under Alcmaeon, son of Amphiaraus. Apollodorus lists Diomedes, son of Tydeus, and Sthenelus, son of Capaneus, among them. This time Thebes fell. Pausanias says the first war cost the Thebans so dearly that a victory ruinous to the victors came to be called a Cadmean victory. He also reports a rite at the tombs of the children of Oedipus, where the flame and smoke of the sacrifice split in two.
Afterlife and Modern Influence
The Roman poet Statius retold the whole war in his Latin epic, the Thebaid. Dante's Inferno placed two of the Seven in hell. In Canto 14 Capaneus lies on the burning sand among the blasphemers, still defying Jove, and Virgil names him as one of the seven kings who besieged Thebes. At the close of Canto 32, Dante compares Ugolino gnawing his enemy's skull to Tydeus gnawing the head of Melanippus.
What is the curse of Thebes?
In the Seven Against Thebes story it is Oedipus's curse on his own sons. Apollodorus says he cursed Eteocles and Polynices when they let him be driven from Thebes without helping him. Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus has him pray that Polynices die by a kindred hand and kill the brother who exiled him. Aeschylus treats the curse as the Erinys at work in the family. It came true when the brothers killed each other at the gates.
Apollodorus, Library 3.5.9
Why did Polynices raise an army to march against his brother Eteocles?
Because Eteocles broke their agreement to share the throne. Apollodorus says the brothers were to rule Thebes in alternate years, and that when Tydeus came as an envoy demanding the kingdom for Polynices, Eteocles ignored him. Polynices had married a daughter of Adrastus, king of Argos, who had promised to restore him. The sources disagree on the details: Euripides has Polynices go into exile first, while Sophocles makes him the elder brother, pushed out by the younger Eteocles.
Apollodorus, Library 3.6.1
Who survived the Seven Against Thebes?
Of the leaders, only Adrastus, king of Argos. Apollodorus says his divine horse Arion carried him off the field, and that the seer Amphiaraus had foreseen this: everyone who joined the expedition would die except Adrastus. Amphiaraus himself did not die in the ordinary way. Pindar says Zeus split the earth with a thunderbolt and hid him in it with his chariot, and Apollodorus adds that Zeus made him immortal.
Apollodorus, Library 3.6.8
Was Seven Against Thebes part of a trilogy?
Yes. Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes was staged in 467 BC as the third play of a connected trilogy about the family of Laius. The production notice preserved with the play in its medieval manuscript names the other two tragedies, Laius and Oedipus, and a satyr play, Sphinx, performed after them. Only the Seven survives, so it now reads as a stand-alone play about the last generation of the house.
What is the plot of Seven against Thebes?
Aeschylus's play takes place inside the besieged city. Eteocles rebukes the panicking chorus of Theban women, then hears a scout describe the Argive champion at each of the seven gates and names a Theban defender for each. The seventh attacker is his own brother, and Eteocles goes to face him knowing his father's curse. A messenger reports that the city is saved and both brothers are dead, and the play ends in lament. Its closing scene, where a herald forbids Polynices's burial, is doubted by many modern editors.
Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes 375-652
Where Accounts Differ
- seven-champions-lists-differ
- which-brother-ruled-first
- who-killed-melanippus
- recovery-of-the-dead-by-battle-or-consent
- aeschylus-seven-ending-authenticity
- The seven champions differ by source. Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes 375-652, and Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 1313-1325, both name Tydeus, Capaneus, Eteoclus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Amphiaraus and Polynices. Euripides, Phoenician Women 1104-1138, replaces Eteoclus with Adrastus. Apollodorus 3.6.3 counts Adrastus and omits Eteoclus, and records that others drop Tydeus and Polynices for Eteoclus and Mecisteus. The Argive statue group at Delphi described by Pausanias 10.10.3 includes both Adrastus and Eteoclus. This page reports every list rather than choosing one.
- Which brother ruled first is disputed. Apollodorus 3.6.1 records both versions. Euripides, Phoenician Women 71-76, calls Polynices the younger and sends him into exile first. Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 1295, has Polynices call himself the elder and Eteocles the younger. Pausanias 9.5.12 gives a different sequence altogether: Polynices left Thebes while Oedipus was still alive, returned after his death, quarrelled with Eteocles and went into exile a second time.
- Apollodorus 3.6.8 has Melanippus wound Tydeus and Amphiaraus cut off Melanippus's head; his text also says Tydeus had killed Melanippus, words Frazer, following Heyne, suggests may be an interpolation. Pausanias 9.18.1 says Melanippus killed Tydeus and Mecisteus and was himself killed by Amphiaraus.
- The recovery of the Argive dead is told two ways. Apollodorus 3.7.1 has the Athenians under Theseus capture Thebes to take them. Pausanias 1.39.2 reports the Theban version, in which the dead were handed over willingly and no battle was fought.
- The ending of Aeschylus's Seven Against Thebes, where a herald announces the ban on burying Polynices and Antigone defies it (from line 1005), is regarded by many modern editors as a later addition written under the influence of Sophocles's Antigone. This page does not treat that scene as evidence for Aeschylus's own version of the aftermath.
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Mythology
Figures In This Myth
Also Connected
Related Terms
Referenced By
Sources
- Homer, Iliad 4.370-410
- Homer, Iliad 4.404-410
- Homer, Iliad 5.800-808
- Homer, Odyssey 11.326-327
- Homer, Odyssey 15.244-247
- Hesiod, Works and Days 161-163
- Pindar, Nemean Odes 9.13-27
- Pindar, Olympian Ode 6.12-17
- Apollodorus, Library 3.4.2
- Apollodorus, Library 3.5.9
- Apollodorus, Library 3.6.1
- Apollodorus, Library 3.6.2
- Apollodorus, Library 3.6.3
- Apollodorus, Library 3.6.4
- Apollodorus, Library 3.6.5
- Apollodorus, Library 3.6.7
- Apollodorus, Library 3.6.8
- Apollodorus, Library 3.7.1
- Apollodorus, Library 3.7.2
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 1.39.2
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.5.12
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.9.3
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.18.1
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.18.3
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.25.1
- Pausanias, Description of Greece 10.10.3
- Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes 375-652
- Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 1313-1325
- Euripides, Phoenissae 1104-1138
- J. G. Frazer, Apollodorus: The Library (Loeb, 1921), notes to 3.6-3.7