The Seven against Thebes

Seven against Thebes, The (Gk. Hepta epi Thēbas, Lat. Septem contra Thēbas), tragedy by Aeschylus, produced in 467 BC, the third play in a trilogy dealing with related events, the first two plays being Laius and Oedipus; the satyr-play which followed it was also related in subject-matter, being entitled Sphinx; all these plays except the Seven are lost.

Polyneicēs, son of Oedipus, has come, aided by the Argive army, to claim the kingdom of Thebes, unjustly retained by his brother Eteoclēs (see OEDIPUS). The scene is the city of Thebes, and the chorus is composed of Theban women. A messenger announces the disposition of the Argive army and describes the seven champions preparing to lead the attack, one at each of the seven gates of Thebes. Eteocles appoints a Theban opponent to withstand each one, finding himself left to oppose Polyneices; Eteocles rushes out to face his brother in spite of the dissuasions of the chorus. Their deaths at each other's hands are announced, and their bodies are borne in, mourned by the chorus. In a scene probably added by an imitator their sisters Ismenē and Antigonē join in the lamentation. A herald announces the decree that the body of Polyneices, who has waged war on his own city, shall lie unburied. Antigone at once declares that she will defy the edict: she will bury him herself.

For the Argive background see ADRASTUS. The seven champions in Aeschylus' play are Adrastus, Tydeus (an exile at Argos from Calydon), Parthenopaeus (an Arcadian, son of Atalanta), Capaneus, Hippomedon, Amphiaraus, and Polyneices. In other versions of the story two alternative champions were sometimes included, Eteocles, son of Iphis, instead of Adrastus, and Mecisteus, Adrastus' brother, instead of Polyneices. The story was told in the Thebais, a poem of the Epic Cycle.