Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Antiope, daughter of the Boeotian river-god Asopus (or of Nycteus of Thebes), is loved by Zeus and bears twin sons, Amphion and Zethus. Fleeing or punished, she is mistreated under her uncle Lycus and his wife Dirce at Thebes. The infants are exposed but rescued and reared by a herdsman. Grown, the twins learn their identity, return, kill Lycus (or depose him), and bind Dirce to a wild bull—her death giving name to the Theban spring Dirce. They take power in Thebes and build (or rebuild) the city’s famous walls and seven gates. Homeric tradition credits Amphion and Zethus with founding the seven-gated lower city: Zethus heaves stones by brute strength; Amphion, gifted a lyre by Hermes (or Apollo), draws the stones into place by music. Thus the wall is a partnership of force and art. Amphion marries Niobe, daughter of Tantalus; their many children are later slain by Apollo and Artemis when Niobe insults Leto (separate entry). Zethus marries Thebe (eponym) or Aedon in variant lines. After Amphion’s house is ruined by the Niobids’ deaths, rule eventually returns toward the Labdacid line: Laius, son of Labdacus, who had been in exile, is restored—completing the bridge from Cadmus through the Amphionid interlude to Oedipus’s dynasty. The twin builders explain Thebes’s monumental identity—seven gates, lyre-moved stones—and fill the political gap between Cadmus/Polydorus/Labdacus and Laius. Their story is Theban cycle architecture: without Amphion and Zethus, the city Oedipus and the Seven fight over has no walls.