Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Adrastus leads the Argive host against Thebes to restore Polynices. The seven champions commonly named are: Adrastus, Polynices, Tydeus, Capaneus, Hippomedon (or Eteoclus in some lists), Parthenopaeus, and Amphiaraus the seer—who foresees disaster and joins unwillingly, betrayed by his wife Eriphyle (bribed with Harmonia’s necklace by Polynices). At Nemea, on the march, the death of the child Opheltes (Archemorus) founds the Nemean games—an omen that the expedition is “the beginning of doom.” Before Thebes, Amphiaraus and others urge delay; passion and Adrastus’s oath prevail. Aeschylus stages Eteocles assigning defenders to the seven gates as a scout reports each attacker: Tydeus at one gate, Capaneus boasting he will sack the city even against Zeus’s will, Parthenopaeus, Hippomedon, Amphiaraus (just but doomed), and finally Polynices at the gate opposite Eteocles. Eteocles, despite the chorus’s pleas, insists on facing his brother himself—so the curse may run its course in single combat. The assault fails as a whole. Capaneus is struck by Zeus’s thunderbolt as he scales the wall. Amphiaraus is swallowed by the earth (Zeus’s mercy or the earth opening before Periclymenus’s pursuit) and becomes an oracular hero. Other champions fall. Adrastus alone of the leaders escapes, saved by his divine horse Arion. The decisive personal climax—the brothers’ mutual slaughter—and the aftermath of burial belong to the next entries; this file covers the march, the gate-battles, and the ruin of the expedition’s pride under the Labdacid curse and Zeus’s will.