Seven against Thebes
[2] 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.
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.
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.
[12] 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.
In a story first attested in Euripides' The Phoenician Women, the seer Teiresias prophesied that Thebes would be saved if Creon's son Menoeceus (previously unknown) sacrificed himself, which he did.
[19] Athenian tradition held that Theseus, the king and founder-hero of Athens, either by force or negotiation, recovered the bodies of the Seven at Thebes, and buried them at Eleusis.
However, in Aeschylus' earlier lost tragedy Eleusinians, evidently Theseus obtained the bodies through negotiation, the version of the story apparently preferred by the Thebans.
The sixth, Parthenopaeus, although usually an Arcadian whose mother was Atalanta (as he is in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes), in another tradition (attested as early as Hecataeus) he was the son of Talaus, and thus also an Argive and the brother of Adrastus.
[48] Agamemnon also says that—when Tydeus and Polynices left Mycenae, "and were with deep reeds, that coucheth in the grass" (i.e. had reached the Asopos River in Boetia)—Tydeus was sent alone on an embassy to Thebes.
[62] We learn that Polynices and Eteocles, were cursed by their father Oedipus, and so doomed to their fatal dispute,[63] and that, during the battle at Thebes, while all the others perished, Adrastus alone was saved thanks to his horse Arion.
[69] According to the geographer Pausanias, the brothers Polynices and Eteocles were depicted fighting each other, in the presence of a Ker (a goddess of death) on the Chest of Kypselos at Olympia (late seventh to early sixth century BC).
The poem refers to the Seven as "the heroes with red shields, the best of the Argives", and says that they established the Nemean Games in honor of "Archemorus", whom a "monstrous" serpent had killed.
He calls the Argive deaths a "powerful fate", which could not be avoided even though Amphiaraus tried to "persuade them to go back", saying that it was hope, rather than good sense, that sent Adrastus and Polynices to Thebes.
[75] After which: ... they led an army of men to seven-gated Thebes on a journey with no favorable omens, and Cronus’ son brandished his lightning and urged them not to set out recklessly from home, but to forgo the expedition.
[78] As for the rest of the expedition: they laid down their sweet homecoming and fed the white-flowering smoke with their bodies, for seven pyres feasted on the men’s young limbs.
[79] In another poem (Olympian 6) Pindar says that after "the corpses of the seven funeral pyres had been consumed", that Adrastus lamented Amphiaraus' death saying: "I dearly miss the eye of my army, good both as a seer and at fighting with the spear.
Just as in Aeschylus' play, Sophocles has seven champions face seven defenders at the seven gates of Thebes—with Polynices and Eteocles killing each other—but with no names or other details:[96] For seven captains posted against seven gates, man against man, left behind their brazen weapons for Zeus the god of trophies, except for the unhappy two, who, sprung of one father and one mother, set their strong spears against each other and both shared a common death.
[97]Without naming him, Sophocles describes Capaneus' death: For Zeus detests the boasts of a proud tongue, and when he saw them advancing in full flood, with the arrogance of flashing gold, with the fire he hurls he flung down him who was already hastening to shout forth his victory on the topmost ramparts.
"[106] Theseus, having finally been persuaded to help Adrastus, leads an Athenian army to Thebes where—unlike in Aeschylus' Eleusinians in which he is able to accomplish his mission through diplomacy—he must defeat the Thebans in battle in order to bring back to Eleusis the bodies of the fallen warriors.
Since only Menoeceus satisfies the proper conditions, he stabs himself on top of the city walls above where the dragon was killed, so that as his body falls it lands on that spot.
[128] Here Hypsipyle, the former queen of Lemnos and lover of Jason, has come to be a slave, and nursemaid of the infant Opheltes, who is the son of Lycurgus, the priest of Zeus at Nemea, and his wife Eurydice.
[136] Sophocles gives the same list of Seven as given in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, and Euripides' The Suppliants: Tydeus, Capaneus, Eteoclus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Amphiaraus and Polynices.
[140] Diodorus gives a more complete version of Amphiaraus' betrayal by his wife Eriphyle, consistent with the passing mentions in Homer and Pindar, and the account attributed to Asclepiades.
[141] Adrastus recruits Capaneus, Hippomedon and Parthenopaeus, the son of Atalanta, to join himself, Polynices, Tydeus, and Amphiaraus as the seven leaders of the "notable army", the same list of Seven as in The Phoenician Women.
As for the burial of the Seven, Diodorus (with no mention of Creon, Antigone or Theseus) says that the Thebans refused to allow Adrastus to remove the dead, so he goes home to Argos, and (as in Euripides' The Suppliants) the Athenians recover the bodies and bury them.
[145] At Thebes, an impious Capaneus is struck down by a Jovian thunderbolt while scaling the city walls, the earth swallows Amphiaraus, Polynices and Eteocles kill each other (68), and all the rest die except Adrastus (70).
Argia now Polynices' wife, tearfully urges her father Adrastus to make war on Thebes, who begins assembling an army (3.678–721).
Statius' Seven champions are the same as in The Phoenician Women, Diodorus, and Hyginus: Adrastus, Polynices, Tydeus, Hippomedon, Capaneus, Amphiaraus, and Parthenopaeus (4.32–250).
A battle ensues, Theseus kills Creon in single combat, enters the city as victor, and the bodies of the fallen warriors are burned and buried (12.720–809).
[155] Apollodorus (agreeing with The Phoenician Women, Diodorus, Hyginus, and Statius) lists the Seven champions as: Adrastus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Hippomedon, Polynices, Tydeus, and Parthenopaeus.
