Seven Against Thebes (Masterplots, Revised Second Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Aeschylus
- First Published: 467
- Type of Work: Drama
- Type of Plot: Tragedy
- Time of Work: Antiquity
- Setting: Thebes
- Principal Characters: Eteocles, Polynices, Antigone, Ismene, A Spy, Theban Women
- Genres: Drama, Tragedy
- Subjects: War, Fratricide, parricide, or filicide, Fate or fatalism, Greek or Roman times, Duels or dueling, Civil wars, Greece or Greek people
- Locales: Greece, ancient, Thebes, ancient
The Story:
After the ruin and exile of Oedipus, the king of Thebes, his sons, Eteocles and Polynices, fell into dispute, each brother claiming supreme authority in the city. The quarrel led to a bloody civil war in which Eteocles was victorious. Banished from Thebes, Polynices went to Argos. There he mustered an army, led by six famous Argive heroes, for the purpose of returning and recapturing the city, which was restless under his brother’s rule.
Thebes was besieged with the Argive warriors camped about its walls. Eteocles, consulting a seer, learned that his...
[The entire page is 2337 words long]
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