LITERATURE OF ANCIENT GREECE. 71 themselves amongst the conquerors of Thebes, and their fathers before them, a bolder and wilder race, had fought on the same spot, in a con- test which, although unattended with victory, was still far from inglorious. Hence also reputed Homeric poems on the subject of this war were extant, which perhaps really bore a great affinity to the Homeric time and school. For we do not find, as in the other poems of the cycle, the names of one or several later poets placed in connexion with these compositions, but they are either attributed to Homer, as the earlier Greeks in general appear to have done*, or, if the authorship of Homer is doubted, they are usually attributed to no author at all. The Thebais, which consisted of seven books, or 5,600 verses, originated from Argos, winch was also considered by Homer as the centre of the Grecian power : it commenced "Sing, O Muse, the thirsty Argos, where the princes . . . .f" Here dwelt Adiastus, to whom Polynices, the banished son of GSdipus, fled, and found with him a reception. The poet then took occa- sion to enter upon the cause of the banishment of Polynices, and related the fate of (Edipus and his curse twice pronounced against his sons. Amphiraus was represented as a wise counsellor to Adrastus, and in opposition to Polynices and Tydeus, the heroes eager for battle. Eriphyle was the Helen of this war ; the seductive woman who induced her otherwise prudent husband to rush, conscious of his doom, to meet his unhappy fate J. The insolence of the Argive chiefs was probably represented as the principal cause of their destruction ; Homer in the Iliad described it as the crime and curse of these heroes§, and iEschylus portrays it in characteristic emblems and words. Adrastus is only saved by his horse Areion, a supernatural being ; and a prophecy respecting the Epigoni concluded the whole. The Epigoni was so far a second part of the Thebais that it was some- times comprehended under the same name||, though it might also be considered as distinct. It began with an allusion to the first heroic expedition, " Now, O Muses, let us commence the exploits of the later men^[ ;" and related the much less notorious actions of the sons of the heroes, according to all probability under the auspices of the same Adrastus ** who was destined to conquer Thebes, if his army should be
- In Pausan. ix. 9, 3. KaAXmj is certainly the light reading. This ancient
elegiac poet therefore, about the 20th Olympiad, quoted the Thebaid as Homeric. The Epigoni was still commonly ascribed to Homer in the time of Herodotus, iv. 32. + "Agyos tiiHi ha waXtS/i^/av, 'ivQa, uvuktis-
Hence the entire poem is in Pseudo-Herod. Vit. Horn. c. 9, called 'Afifid^iu
^,tXtt<rln U ©»)/Saj, in Suidas ' Apificcgclov i%iXit/tris. § II. v. 408. || Thus the scholiast on Apoll. Rhod. i. 308, in the account of Mauto, cites the Thebaid for the Epigoni. ^[ Nuv aZff oyXoripuiv avSj&iv ag%vf£i$ct, Movtrai.
- See Pindar, Pyth. viii. 48. It can be shown that Pindar, in his mentions ol
this fable, always keeps near to the Thebaid.
