CC 303/352: Lecture Outline, November 1, 2001

Thebes

I. The myths

A. Foundation and the earliest years

• Cadmus and his family

1. Europa, Cadmus, the cow, the dragon, and the Spartoi
2. Harmonia and her necklace
3. Actaeon
4. Semele, Dionysus, Pentheus, et al.
5. Cadmon and Harmonia become snakes (chthonic)

• Amphion and Zethus

1. Antiope raped by Zeus, gives birth to Amphion and Zethus
2. Antiope punished by her uncle Lycus and his wife Dirce
3. Amphion and Zethus kill Lycus and Dirce
4. Amphion builds walls of Thebes by moving stones with music
5. Amphion marries Niobe

B. House of Labdacus

• Laius

1. rapes Chrysippus and is cursed by Pelops
2. oracle: his son will kill him
3. exposes Oedipus, who is taken to Corinth

• Oedipus

1. oracle: he will kill his father and marry his mother
2. flees towards Thebes
3. kills Laius on road
4. kills sphinx by answering riddle
5. becomes king of Thebes and marries Jocasta
6. plague
7. truth revealed: Jocasta kills herself; Oedipus blinds himself and goes into exile
8. Oedipus dies in Colonus and becomes hero

C. The Seven Against Thebes

• Events

1. Eteocles and Polyneices agree to rule one year at a time
2. Eteocles refuses to give up throne
3. Polyneices goes to Argos: gets together Seven Warriors and their armies to attack Thebes
4. Creon's son Menoeceus kills self to save city
5. Polyneices and Eteocles kill each other
6. Seven defeated: Creon refuses to let Polyneices be buried
7. Antigone buries Polyneices and is buried alive by Creon
8. Antigone, Creon's son Haemon, and Creon's wife Euridice kills themselves
9. Adrastus flees to Athens; Theseus leads army to force Thebans to bury the dead

• The Seven

1. Polyneices
2. Adrastus (king of Argos)
3. Amphiaraus (seer: goes because his wife Eriphyle is bribed by Polyneices with necklace of Harmonia; is swallowed up into earth during battle)
4. Capaneus (boasts that nothing can stop him from taking Thebes and is struck down by Zeus)
5. Tydeus (loses chance at immortality because he eats brains of his enemy)
6. Hippomedon
7. Parthenopeus

D. The Epigoni

• Sons of Seven attack Thebes: at Teiresias' suggestion, city is abandoned
• Alcmeon (son of Amphiaraus) kills Eriphyle and is driven insane until he is purified

II. Perspectives

• history

1. Thebes an important Mycenaean city
2. settlers from east?
3. Thebes apparently abandoned near end of Bronze Age
4. writing comes from Phoenicia about 800 BC

• religion: Cadmus, Oedipus and Amphiaraus become heroes after death
• functions / recurring elements / folktale motifs
• Thebes as "the other" in Athenian tragedy

1. Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes
2. Euripides, Bacchae, Phoenician Women, The Suppliant Women
3. Sophocles, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone

For Tuesday, November 6: Concentrate on Questions about Oedipus at Colonus

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