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Laius was buried by Damasistratus, king of Plataea,[*](Compare Paus. 9.5.4.) and Creon, son of Menoeceus, succeeded to the kingdom. In his reign a heavy calamity befell Thebes. For Hera sent the Sphinx,[*](As to the Sphinx and her riddle, see Hes. Th. 326ff. (who says that she was the offspring of Echidna and Orthus); Soph. OT 391ff.; Eur. Ph. 45ff.; Diod. 4.64.3ff.; Paus. 9.26.2-4; Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 45; Hyginus, Fab. 67; Seneca, Oedipus 92ff. The riddle is quoted in verse by several ancient writers. See Athenaeus x.81, p. 456 B; Tzetzes, Scholiast on Lycophron 7; Anth. Pal. xiv.64; Argument to Soph. OT, p. 6, ed. R. C. Jebb; Argument to Eur. Ph.; and Scholiast on Eur. Ph. 50 (Scholia in Euripiden, ed. E. Schwartz, vol. i. pp. 243ff. 256). Outside of Greece the riddle seems to be current in more or less similar forms among various peoples. Thus it is reported among the Mongols of the Selenga (R. G. Latham, Descriptive Ethnology, i.325), and in Gascony (J. F. Bladé, Contes populaires de la Gascogne, i.3-14). Further, it has been recently recorded, in a form precisely similar to the Greek, among the tribes of British Central Africa: the missionary who reports it makes no reference to the riddle of the Sphinx, of which he was apparently ignorant. See Donald Fraser, Winning a primitive people (London, 1914) p. 171, “What is it that goes on four legs in the morning, on two at midday, and on three in the evening? Answer: A man, who crawls on hands and knees in childhood, walks erect when grown, and with the aid of a stick in his old age.”) whose mother was Echidna and her father Typhon; and she had the face of a woman, the breast and feet and tail of a lion, and the wings of a bird. And having learned a riddle from the Muses, she sat on Mount Phicium, and propounded it to the Thebans. And the riddle was this:— What is that which has one voice and yet becomes four-footed

When the secret afterwards came to light, Jocasta hanged herself in a noose,[*](Compare Hom. Od. 11.277ff.; Soph. OT 1235ff. According to Seneca, in one passage (Sen. Oedipus, 1034ff.), Jocasta stabbed herself to death on the discovery of her incest. But Euripides makes Jocasta survive her two sons and stab herself to death on their dead bodies. See Eur. Ph. 1455-1459. Herein he was perhaps followed by Seneca in his tragedy, for in the fragments of that play ( Seneca, Oedipus 443ff.) Seneca represents Jocasta attempting to make peace between Eteocles and Polynices on the battlefield; but the conclusion of the play is lost. Similarly Statius describes how Jocasta vainly essayed to reconcile her warring sons, and how she stabbed herself to death on learning that they had fallen by each other's hands. See Statius, Theb. vii.474ff., xi.634ff. ) and Oedipus

Now Eteocles and Polynices made a compact with each other concerning the kingdom and resolved that each should rule alternately for a year at a time.[*](That is, they were to reign in alternate years. Compare Eur. Ph. 69ff.; Eur. Ph. 473ff.; Diod. 4.65.1; Zenobius, Cent. i.30; Hyginus, Fab. 67; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. pp. 48ff. (First Vatican Mythographer 152). In this and the sequel Zenobius, Cent. i.30 closely follows Apollodorus and probably copied from him.) Some say that Polynices was the first to rule, and that after a year he handed over the kingdom to Eteocles; but some say that Eteocles was the first to rule, and would not hand over the kingdom. So, being banished from Thebes, Polynices came to Argos, taking with him the

But Amphiaraus, son of Oicles, being a seer and foreseeing that all who joined in the expedition except Adrastus were destined to perish, shrank from it himself and discouraged the rest. However, Polynices went to Iphis, son of Alector, and begged to know how Amphiaraus could be compelled to go

Having mustered an army with seven leaders, Adrastus hastened to wage war on Thebes. The leaders were these[*](For lists of the seven champions who marched against Thebes, see Aesch. Seven 375ff.; Soph. OC 1309ff.; Eur. Ph. 1090ff. and Eur. Supp. 857ff.; Diod. 4.65.7; Hyginus, Fab. 70.): Adrastus, son of Talaus;

Having come to Nemea, of which Lycurgus was king, they sought for water; and Hypsipyle showed them the way to a spring, leaving behind an infant boy Opheltes, whom she nursed, a child of Eurydice and Lycurgus.[*](As to the meeting of the Seven Champions with Hypsipyle at Nemea, the death of Opheltes, and the institution of the Nemean games, see Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. pp. 424ff. ed. Boeckh; Bacch. 8.10ff. [9], ed. Jebb; Clement of Alexandria, Protrept. ii.34, p. 29, ed. Potter, with the Scholiast; Hyginus, Fab. 74, 273; Statius, Theb. iv.646-vi.; Lactantius Placidus on Statius, Theb. iv.717; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode. vol. i. p. 123 (Second Vatican Mythographer 141). The institution of the Nemean games in honour of Opheltes or Archemorus was noticed by Aeschylus in a lost play. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), p. 49. The judges at the Nemean games wore dark-coloured robes in mourning, it is said, for Opheltes (Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. p. 425, ed. Boeckh); and the crown of parsley bestowed on the victor is reported to have been chosen for the same sad reason (Serv. Verg. Ecl. 6.68). However, according to another account, the crowns at Nemea were originally made of olive, but the material was changed to parsley after the disasters of the Persian war (Scholiast on Pind. N., Arg. p. 425). The grave of Opheltes was at Nemea, enclosed by a stone wall; and there were altars within the enclosure (Paus. 2.15.3). Euripides wrote a tragedy Hypsipyle, of which many fragments have recently been discovered in Egyptian papyri. See TGF (Nauck 2nd ed.), pp. 594ff.; A. S. Hunt, Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta Papyracea nuper reperta (Oxford, no date, no pagination). In one of these fragments (col. iv.27ff.) it is said that Lycurgus was chosen from all Asopia to be the warder (Κληδοῦχος) of the local Zeus. There were officials bearing the same title (κλειδοῦχοι) at Olympia (Dittenberger, Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum 1021, vol. ii. p. 168) in Delos (Dittenberger, Orientis Graeci Inscriptiones Selectae, vol. i. p. 252, No. 170), and in the worship of Aesculapius at Athens (E. S. Roberts and E. A. Gardner, Introduction to Greek Epigraphy, Part ii. p. 410, No. 157). The duty from which they took their title was to keep the keys of the temple. A fine relief in the Palazzo Spada at Rome represents the serpent coiled round the dead body of the child Opheltes and attacked by two of the heroes, while in the background Hypsipyle is seen retreating, with her hands held up in horror and her pitcher lying at her feet. See W. H. Roscher, Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie, i.473; Baumeister, Denkmaler des klassichen Altertums, i.113, fig. 119. The death of Opheltes or Archemorus is also the subject of a fine vase-painting, which shows the dead boy lying on a bier and attended by two women, one of whom is about to crown him with a wreath of myrtle, while the other holds an umbrella over his head to prevent, it has been suggested, the sun's rays from being defiled by falling on a corpse. Amongst the figures in the painting, which are identified by inscriptions, is seen the mother Eurydice standing in her palace between the suppliant Hypsipyle on one side and the dignified Amphiaraus on the other. See E. Gerhard, “Archemoros,” Gesammelte Abhandlungen (Berlin, 1866- 1868) i.5ff., with Abbildungen, taf. i.; K. Friederichs, Praxiteles und die Niobegruppe (Leipzig, 1855), pp. 123ff.; Baumeister, op. cit. i.114, fig. 120.) For the Lemnian women,

When they came to Cithaeron, they sent Tydeus to tell Eteocles in advance that he must cede the kingdom to Polynices, as they had agreed among themselves. As Eteocles paid no heed to the

Having armed themselves, the Argives approached the walls[*](The siege of Thebes by the Argive army under the Seven Champions is the subject of two extant Greek tragedies, the Seven against Thebes of Aeschylus, and the Phoenissae of Euripides. In both of them the attack on the seven gates by the Seven Champions is described. See the Aesch. Seven 375ff.; Eur. Ph. 105ff.; Eur. Ph. 1090ff. The siege is also the theme of Statius's long-winded and bombastic epic, the Thebaid . Compare also Diod. 4.65.7-9; Paus. 1.39.2; Paus. 2.20.5; Paus. 8.25.4; Paus. 10.10.3; Hyginus, Fab. 69, 70. The war was also the subject of two lost poems of the same name, the Thebaid of Callinus, an early elegiac poet, and the Thebaid of Antimachus, a contemporary of Plato. See Epicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, pp. 9ff., 275ff. As to the seven gates of Thebes, see Paus. 9.8.4-7, with Frazer, commentary (vol. iv. pp. 35ff.). The ancients were not entirely agreed as to the names of the gates.); and as there were seven gates, Adrastus was stationed at the Homoloidian gate, Capaneus at the Ogygian, Amphiaraus at the Proetidian, Hippomedon at the Oncaidian, Polynices at the Hypsistan,[*](That is, “the Highest Gate.”) Parthenopaeus at the Electran, and Tydeus at the Crenidian.[*](That is, “the Fountain Gate.”) Eteocles on his side armed the Thebans, and having appointed leaders to match those of the enemy in number, he put the battle in array, and resorted to divination to learn how they might overcome the foe.