Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 16, 2025
But after a while King Eteocles slipped upon a stone that was under his foot, and uncovered his leg, at which straightway Polynices took aim with his spear, piercing the skin. But so doing he laid his own shoulder bare, and King Eteocles gave him a wound in the breast.
Polynices had been expelled from Thebes by his brother Eteocles, and had been wandering through Greece seeking aid to recover his rights.
Were they not brought up, and did they not live and eat and sleep, together? Did not they kiss and fondle each other? So that any one, who saw them, would have laughed at all the paradoxes which philosophers utter about love. And yet when a kingdom, like a bit of meat, was thrown betwixt them, see what they say Polynices. Where wilt thou stand before the towers? Eteocles.
Statius has also given us a long and characteristically elaborate account of the calling up of the shade of Laius by Eteocles and Tiresias. Apuleius, in his truly astounding account of Thessaly in his day, gives a detailed description of the process of calling back a corpse to life.
King Creon hath made a proclamation that they shall bury Eteocles with all honor, but that Polynices shall lie unburied, that the birds of the air and the beasts of the field may devour him, and that whosoever shall break this decree shall suffer death by stoning." "But if it be so, my sister, how can we avail to change it?" "Think whether or no thou wilt share with me the doing of this deed."
The Thebais consists of twelve books, and the subject of it is the Theban war, which happened 1236 years before the Christian era, in consequence of a dispute between Eteocles and Polynices, the sons of Oedipus and Jocasta. These brothers had entered into an agreement with each other to reign alternately for a year at a time; and Eteocles being the elder, got first possession of the throne.
Four children were born to them two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, and two daughters, Antigone and Ismené. Now the gods had decreed that Œdipus should murder his own father and marry his own mother, and by a curious chance this was precisely what he had done.
The Phoenissae is rich in tragic incidents, in the common acceptation of the word: the son of Creon, to save his native city, precipitates himself from the walls; Eteocles and Polynices perish by each other's hands; over their dead bodies Jocasta falls by her own hand; the Argives who hare made war upon Thebes are destroyed in battle; Polynices remains uninterred; and lastly, Oedipus and Antigone are driven into exile.
This story of OEdipus and his family is only a myth, but it is a very celebrated one. The Greeks wrote stories, poems, and plays about it, and it is on that account that it should be known by every one who wishes to study the history of Greece. The terrible death of the two brothers Eteocles and Polynices did not, as you might suppose, end the siege of Thebes.
When consulted by Eteocles, he declared that victory should fall to Thebes if Menoeceus, the son of Creon, gave himself a voluntary victim. The heroic youth, learning the response, threw away his life in the first encounter. The siege continued long, with various success. At length both hosts agreed that the brothers should decide their quarrel by single combat.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking