The Seven against Thebes (, ) were seven champions in Greek mythology who made war on Thebes.For discussion of the Seven against Thebes see Hard, pp. 317–321; Gantz, pp. 510–519; Tripp, s.v. Seven against Thebes; Parada, s.v. SEVEN AGAINST THEBES. They were chosen by Adrastus, the king of Argos, to be the captains of an Argive army whose purpose was to restore Oedipus' son Polynices to the Theban throne. Adrastus, although always the leader of the expedition against Thebes, was not always counted as one of the Seven champions. Usually the Seven were Polynices, Tydeus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Parthenopaeus, Hippomedon, and either Adrastus or Eteoclus, when Adrastus is excluded.Hard, p. 317. They tried and failed to take Thebes, and all but Adrastus died in the attempt.Hard, pp. 319–321.
On their way to Thebes, the Seven stopped at Nemea, where they held funeral games for the infant Opheltes, which became the origin myth for the Nemean Games. Before arriving at Thebes, Adrastus sent Tydeus on ahead to resolve the dispute through negotiation, which failed. At Thebes, Capaneus was struck down by Zeus' thunderbolt while attempting to scale the city walls. Tydeus was mortally wounded, and although Athena intended to make him immortal, she let him die when she saw him eating the brains of his attacker. Polynices was killed by (and killed) his brother Eteocles, the seer Amphiaraus was swallowed up by the earth, and Adrastus escaped the battlefield on his divine horse Arion. The victorious Thebans refused to allow the burial of the Argive dead, but Theseus marched an Athenian army to Thebes and recovered the bodies of the fallen warriors.
The war of the Seven against Thebes occurred in the generation prior to that of the Trojan War. According to Hesiod's Works and Days, these two wars were the two great events of the fourth age, the age of heroes.Gantz, p. 510; West, p. 4; Hesiod, Works and Days 156–165. The Seven's war against Thebes was the first of two Theban wars. The second Theban war was fought, and won, ten years later by the Seven's sons, the Epigoni.Hard, p. 325; West, pp. 4–5; Gantz, p. 522.
The war against Thebes Polynices and Eteocles
The war of the Seven against Thebes resulted from a quarrel between the brothers Polynices and Eteocles over the kingship of Thebes.For discussions of the quarrel between Polynices and Eteocles, see Gantz, pp. 502–506; Hard, pp. 314–317. Polynices and Eteocles had been cursed by their father Oedipus, the former king of Thebes, to battle over their patrimony. The curse inexorably led to the brothers' quarrel, their killing each other, and the Argive disaster at Thebes.Gantz, pp. 502–503; Hard, p. 315.
After Oedipus had vacated the throne, according to some accounts, it was agreed that Eteocles would inherit the throne, and that Polynices would take a share of the household property, while according to a different account, Eteocles forced Polynices into exile. However, in what became the most familiar version of the story, first occurring in Euripides' Phoenician Women, the brothers agreed to share the throne, with each ruling in alternate years, but after the first year Eteocles refused to relinquish the throne.Hard, p. 316; Gantz, pp. 503–506; Fowler 2013, p. 409; Euripides, Phoenician Women 69–76; Frazer's note 1 to Apollodorus, 3.6.1. The same story of shared rule is found in Diodorus Siculus, 4.65.1; Hyginus, Fabulae 67 (which has Oedipous ordain this alteration of rule after his self-blinding); and Apollodorus, 3.6.1. For another version of Polynices' exile given by Pausanias, 9.5.12, see Hard, pp. 316–317.
In the Phoenician Women, Polynices is clearly the hero while Eteocles is the villain. However, in the versions of the story in which Polynices agreed to property in return for relinquishing his right to the throne, he would seem to be to blame for the war. In any case, Eteocles ended up as king, and Polynices in exile.Gantz, p. 506; Hard, p. 316.
Army assembled When Polynices left Thebes he went to Argos where he married Argia, the daughter of Adrastus the king of Argos, and gained the support of his father-in-law for an expedition against Thebes. In a story first encountered in Euripides, we hear that Polynices arrived at Adrastus' palace at night, seeking shelter. He found a place to sleep, but soon after Tydeus, the exiled son of the Calydonian king Oeneus, also arrived seeking shelter, and the two began to fight over the same space. When Adrastus discovered Polynices and Tydeus fighting like wild beasts (or in later accounts when he saw that Polynices wore the hide of a lion and that Tydeus wore the hide of a boar, or that they had those animals on their shields), he remembered an oracle of Apollo that said he should marry his daughters to a lion and a boar. So Adrastus gave his daughters to the two exiled foreign princes, and promised to restore them to their kingdoms, beginning with Polynices.Hard, pp. 315–317; Gantz, pp. 508–510; Tripp, s.v. Seven against Thebes A; Euripides, The Suppliants 131–154, The Phoenician Women 408–429; Hypsipyle, fr. 753c; Diodorus Siculus, 4.65.1–3; Hyginus, Fabulae 69; Statius, Thebaid 1.390–512, 2.152–205; Apollodorus, 3.6.1, with Polynices and Tydeus wearing the pelts of a lion and boar in Hyginus and Statius, and with a lion and a boar on their shields in Apollodorus.
Adrastus proceeded to assemble a large army to attack Thebes, appointing seven champions to be its leaders. These became known as the Seven against Thebes. One of those chosen, the seer Amphiaraus, had foreseen that the expedition was doomed to fail, and that all of the champions but Adrastus would die, and so refused to join. But when Polynices bribed Amphiaraus' wife Eriphyle to tell her husband to join the expedition, he was forced to obey because of a promise Amphiaraus had made to allow his wife, who was also Adrastus' sister, to settle any disputes between the two men.Hard, pp. 317–318; Gantz, pp. 508, 510; Tripp, s.v. Seven against Thebes B; Pindar, Nemean, 9.13–17; Sophocles, fr. 187 Lloyd-Jones; Diodorus Siculus, 4.65.5–6; Apollodorus, 3.6.2.
According to the Iliad, Tydeus and Polynices went to Mycenae to recruit allies for the war, but the Mycenaeans, who at first agreed, finally declined because of ill omens sent by Zeus.Hard, p. 318; Gantz, p. 510; Homer, Iliad 4.376–381.
Death of Opheltes As the army of the Seven marched toward Thebes, they passed through Nemea. There they encountered Hypsipyle, the nursemaid of Opheltes, the infant son of Lycurgus. Needing water, the Seven asked Hypsipyle to direct them to a spring. But while doing this she sat Opheltes down, and the unattended child was killed by a serpent. The Seven killed the serpent, and interceded on Hypsipyle's behalf, as she was being threatened with death for her negligence. Amphiaraus renamed the child Archemorus, meaning the "Beginning of Doom", interpreting the child's death as a harbinger of the Seven's own impending doom at Thebes. The Seven held funeral games in the child's honor, which became the origin of the Nemean Games.Hard, p. 318; Gantz, pp. 510–512; Tripp, s.vv. Opheltes, Seven against Thebes C; Apollodorus, 3.6.4.
Embassy of Tydeus As the Argive army was nearing Thebes, Tydeus was sent ahead alone, on an embassy to the city, to try to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the succession dispute. As recounted in the Iliad, Tydeus found the Theban leaders feasting at the house of Eteocles, and challenged them all to many contests, and (with Athena's help) won every one. In anger, fifty Thebans, led by Maeon, Haemon's son, and Polyphontes, Autophonus' son, ambushed Tydeus as he was returning to his army. But Tydeus killed them all, sparing only Maeon, whom he sent home in obedience to the gods.Hard, pp. 318–319; Gantz, pp. 502, 510, 512–513; Tripp, s.v. Seven against Thebes C; Homer, Iliad 4.382–398; Apollodorus, 3.6.5. Compare with Diodorus, 4.65.4, where Tydeus' embassy and ambush occurs before the army is assembled, see Gantz, p. 513.
Assault on Thebes
When the army of the Seven reached Thebes, they proceeded to launch an attack on the city. In a story first attested in Euripides' The Phoenician Women, the seer Tiresias prophesied that Thebes would be saved if Creon's son Menoeceus (previously unknown) sacrificed himself, which he did.Hard, p. 330; Gantz, p. 519; Tripp, s.v. Seven against Thebes D; Euripides, The Phoenician Women 903–1018; Apollodorus, 3.6.7.
Capaneus impiously boasted that not even Zeus could keep him from burning the city. But, as he was scaling the walls, Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt. Tydeus was mortally wounded by Melanippus, the son of Astacus. A favorite of Athena, the goddess intended to make Tydeus immortal, but the seer Amphiaraus, knowing this, and hating Tydeus, cut off Melanippus' head and gave it to Tydeus, who proceeded to eat the brains of his killer. As was Amphiaraus' intention, Athena was so appalled that she changed her mind and let Tydeus die. Amphiaraus was himself chased from the battlefield by Periclymenus, who had already killed Parthenopaeus. As Amphiaraus was about to be killed by Periclymenus' spear in his back, Zeus intervened, causing the earth to open and swallow up Amphiaraus, along with his chariot and charioteer. At some point in the battle, Polynices and Eteocles met in single combat, and killed each other. According to the mythographer Apollodorus, Eteoclus and Hippomedon were killed by Leades and Ismarus, brothers of Melanippus. All of the Seven perished except Adrastus, who managed to escape, carried from the battlefield by his divine horse Arion.Hard, pp. 319–321; Gantz, pp. 517–519; Tripp, s.v. Seven against Thebes D; Fowler 2013, p. 412 (death of Tydeus); Apollodorus, 3.6.7–8. According to most accounts Amphiaraus was the slayer of Melanippus, however, a possible interpolation in Apollodorus says that Tydeus, though mortally wounded, managed to kill Melanippus himself, see Hard, p. 320; Fowler 2013, p. 412; Gantz, p. 518; Apollodorus, 3.6.8, with Frazer's note 4.
Burial According to accounts first occurring in fifth-century BC Greek tragedy, after the failed assault on Thebes, Creon, who with the death of Eteocles became the new ruler of Thebes, forbade the burial of the expeditions' dead. In Sophocles' tragedy Antigone, Polynices' sister Antigone, in defiance of Creon's decree, tries to bury her brother, an action that leads to the deaths of Antigone, and Creon's son Haemon.Hard, pp. 321–322; Gantz, 519–521; Tripp, s.v. Seven against Thebes E; Apollodorus, 3.7.1.