Mnemosyne — Classical Greek Myth Library

Adrastus, who alone of the Seven against Thebes returned alive—borne off on the divine horse Arion—lived to see the Epigoni avenge their fathers. In that second war his son Aegialeus was the only principal Afterborn slain. Tradition holds that the loss killed the old king: Adrastus died of grief, or wasted away, on hearing of Aegialeus’s death. Pausanias places Adrastus’s end and shrine in Megarian territory: he fled or withdrew toward Megara and died there; the Megarians showed his tomb and honored him. The aetiology mirrors the first war’s asymmetry—unique survival repaid by unique bereavement—and closes Adrastus’s arc as the Argive leader who outlived his generation only to be undone by the next. Some handbook lines simply note that he did not long survive the Epigoni campaign once his heir had fallen.