Iliad 4.405-10
We declare ourselves to be better men by far than our fathers: we took the seat of Thebe of the seven gates, when we twain had gathered a lesser host against a stronger wall, putting our trust in the portents of the gods and in the aid of Zeus; whereas they perished through their own blind folly. Greek Text
W & D 161-63 – Hesiod, Works and Days
Grim war and dread battle destroyed a part of them, some in the land of Cadmus at seven-gated Thebes when they fought for the flocks of Oedipus, and some, when it had brought them in ships over the great sea gulf to Troy. Greek Text
Thebais PEG – Poetae Epici Graeci 1, p. 22, ed. A. Bernabé. Leipzig 1987.
Thebais fr 6 PEG – Poetae Epici Graeci 1, p. 26, ed. A. Bernabé. Leipzig 1987.
Thebais fr 10 PEG – Poetae Epici Graeci 1, p. 28, ed. A. Bernabé. Leipzig 1987.
♦ Chest of Kypselos from temple of Hera at Olympia (known through Pausanias’ description and modern reconstructions)
Pausanias, Description of Greece 5.19.6:
Polyneices, the son of Oedipus, has fallen on his knee, and Eteocles, the other son of Oedipus, is rushing on him. Behind Polyneices stands a woman with teeth as cruel as those of a beast, and her fingernails are bent like talons. An inscription by her calls her Doom [Ker], implying that Polyneices has been carried off by fate, and that Eteocles fully deserved his end. Greek Text
Detail with Eteokles, Polyneikes and a Ker, from reconstruction of chest of Kypselos by W. von Massow, “Die Kypseloslade,” Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts, Athenische Abteilung vol. 41 (1916), pl. 1.
Hekataios 1F32 – Die Fragmente der griechischen Historiker 1, p. 15, ed. F. Jacoby. 2d ed. Leiden 1957.
Iliad 4.376-81
Once verily he came to Mycenae, not as an enemy, but as a guest, in company with godlike Polyneices, to gather a host; for in that day they were waging a war against the sacred walls of Thebe, and earnestly did they make prayer that glorious allies be granted them; and the men of Mycenae were minded to grant them, and were assenting even as they bade, but Zeus turned their minds by showing tokens of ill. Greek Text
Simonides 553 PMG – Poetae Melici Graeci, p. 288, ed. D. L. Page. Oxford 1962.
Bakchylides 9.10-20 – Bacchylidis Carmina cum fragmentis, pp. 27-28, ed. B. Snell and H. Maehler. Leipzig 1970.
Artistic source edited by Frances Van Keuren, Prof. Emerita, Lamar Dodd School of Art, Univ. of Georgia, April 2020
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, May 2020
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