Iliad 5.800-808
Very little like himself was the son that Tydeus begat. Tydeus was small in stature, but a warrior. Even when I would not suffer him to fight or make a show of prowess, what time he came, and no Achaean with him, on an embassage to Thebes into the midst of the many Cadmeians—I bade him feast in their halls in peace—yet he having his valiant soul as of old challenged the youths of the Cadmeians and vanquished them in everything full easily. Greek Text
Iliad 10.285-90
Follow now with me even as thou didst follow with my father, goodly Tydeus, into Thebes, what time he went forth as a messenger of the Achaeans. Them he left by the Asopus, the brazen-coated Achaeans, and he bare a gentle word thither to the Cadmeians; but as he journeyed back he devised deeds right terrible with thee, fair goddess, for with a ready heart thou stoodest by his side. Greek Text
Diodorus Siculus 4.65.4
And having decided to restore Polyneices first, he sent Tydeus as an envoy to Eteocles in Thebes to negotiate the return. But while Tydeus was on his way thither, we are told, he was set upon from ambush by fifty men sent by Eteocles, but he slew every man of them and got through to Argos, to the astonishment of all, whereupon Adrastus, when he learned what had taken place, made preparations for the consequent campaign against Eteocles, having persuaded Capaneus and Hippomedon and Parthenopaeus, the son of Atalantê, the daughter of Schoeneus, to be his allies in the war. Greek Text
ApB 3.6.5 – Apollodoros, Bibliotheke (Library)
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 message, Tydeus, by way of putting the Thebans to the proof, challenged them to single combat and was victorious in every encounter; and though the Thebans set fifty armed men to lie in wait for him as he went away, he slew them all but Maeon, and then came to the camp. Greek Text
Mimnermos 21 W – Iambi et Elegi Greci 2, p. 89, ed. M.L. West. Oxford 1972.
Ion of Chios 740 PMG –Poetae Melici Graeci, p. 383, ed. D. L. Page. Oxford 1962.
Paris, Musee du Louvre, E640. Corinthian amphora by the Tydeus Painter. Tydeus, Ismene, Periklymenos.
It’s All Greek
Literary sources edited by Elena Bianchelli, Senior Lecturer of Classical Languages and Culture, Univ. of Georgia, March 2020
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