Tydeus

While housing Tydeus, King Adrastus of Argos also lodged Polynices, the exiled son of Oedipus who had shared the rule of Thebes with his brother Eteocles before he was expelled by the latter.

Adrastus promised that he would help restore their kingdoms to them (or in other versions of the myth, Polynices asks Adrastus to help him take back Thebes)[3] and he organized the expedition of the Seven against Thebes, and their army raised from Argolis (the area around Argos), the largest army that had ever appeared in Greece to that time.

Frustrated with being ignored by Eteocles, Tydeus issued one-on-one challenges to multiple men and vanquished each one with power granted to him by Athena.

While Tydeus returned to his allies, the Thebans amassed a force of fifty men, led by Maeon and Polyphontes, and ambushed him.

No other Classical writer mentions the story, but the scene is represented on a 6th-century Corinthian black-figure amphora now housed in the Louvre.

In other versions of the myth, the detail is added that the goddess Athena planned to make him immortal but refuses after Tydeus in a hubristic fit devours the brain of the dead Melanippus.