Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

When Polynices, expelled from Thebes, comes to Argos, King Adrastus receives him—often after finding Polynices and Tydeus quarreling over a bed or doorway in the night, their shields or animal emblems matching an oracle that Adrastus should marry his daughters to a lion and a boar. Adrastus gives his daughter Argia (Argeia) to Polynices and Deipyle to Tydeus, binding the two exiles as sons-in-law and pledging to restore both to their fatherlands. The marriage is the political hinge of the first Theban war: through Argia, Polynices gains Argive arms and Adrastus’s leadership of the Seven. Tragic choruses and messengers recall Argia’s farewell as Polynices marches—bride of a man cursed to kill his brother and die. In some later and handbook strands Argia follows to Thebes or helps Antigone bury the fallen husband (03/160); the core classical fact is the Argive wedding that turns a fraternal exile into an international expedition. Catalogue Polynices and Argia here as the alliance-marriage proper, distinct from the muster and the mutual killing.