Editing Adrastus (section)

===Seven against Thebes===
{{main|Seven against Thebes}}
The war of the Seven against Thebes resulted from a quarrel between [[Oedipus]]' sons [[Polynices]] and [[Eteocles]] over the kingship of Thebes, which left Eteocles on the throne, and Polynices in exile.<ref>For discussions of the quarrel between Polynices and Eteocles, see Gantz, pp. 502&ndash;506; Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA315 pp. 315&ndash;317].</ref> One night, Polynices arrived at Adrastus' palace seeking shelter. He found a place to sleep, but soon after [[Tydeus]], the exiled son of the [[Calydon]]ian king [[Oeneus]], also arrived seeking shelter, and the two began to fight over the same space. When Adrastus discovered Polynices and Tydeus fighting like wild beasts (or in later accounts when he saw that Polynices wore the hyde of a lion and that Tydeus wore the Hyde of a Boar, or that they had those animals on their shields), he remembered an oracle of [[Apollo]] that said he should marry his daughters to a lion and a boar. So Adrastus gave his daughters, [[Argia (daughter of Adrastus)|Argia]] to Polynices, and [[Deipyle]] to Tydeus, and promised to restore them to their kingdoms, beginning with Polynices.<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA316 pp. 315&ndash;317]; Gantz, pp. 508&ndash;510; Tripp, s.v. Seven against Thebes A; [[Euripides]], ''[[The Suppliants (Euripides)|The Suppliants]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/euripides-suppliant_women/1998/pb_LCL009.27.xml 131&ndash;154], ''[[The Phoenician Women]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/euripides-phoenician_women/2002/pb_LCL011.253.xml 408&ndash;429]; ''Hypsipyle'', [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/euripides-dramatic_fragments/2008/pb_LCL506.283.xml fr. 753c]; [[Diodorus Siculus]], [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4D*.html#65 4.65.1&ndash;3]; [[Gaius Julius Hyginus|Hyginus]], ''[[Fabulae]]'' 69; [[Statius]], ''[[Thebaid (Latin poem)|Thebaid]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/statius-thebaid/2004/pb_LCL207.69.xml 1.390&ndash;512], [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/statius-thebaid/2004/pb_LCL207.105.xml 2.152&ndash;205]; [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.6.1 3.6.1], with Polynices and Tydeus wearing the pelts of a lion and boar in Hyginus and Statius, and with a lion and a boar on their shields in Apollodorus. The daughters, unnamed in Euripides, are named in Diodorus, Hyginus, Statius, and Apollodorus.</ref>

Adrastus proceeded to assemble a large Argive army to attack Thebes, appointing seven champions to be its leaders. These became known as the Seven against Thebes. One of those chosen, the seer [[Amphiaraus]], had foreseen that the expedition was doomed to fail, and that all of the champions but Adrastus would die, and so refused to join. But when Polynices bribed Amphiaraus' wife [[Eriphyle]] to tell her husband to join the expedition, he was forced to obey because of a promise Amphiaraus had made to allow his wife, who was also Adrastus' sister, to settle any disputes between the two men.<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA317 pp. 317&ndash;318]; Gantz, pp. 508, 510; Tripp, s.v. Seven against Thebes B; [[Pindar]], ''Nemean'', [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/pindar-nemean_odes/1997/pb_LCL485.101.xml 9.13&ndash;17]; [[Sophocles]], [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/sophocles-fragments_known_plays/1996/pb_LCL483.75.xml fr. 187 Lloyd-Jones]; [[Diodorus Siculus]], [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4D*.html#65 4.65.5&ndash;6]; [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.6.2 3.6.2].</ref>

Adrastus and his army were forced to stop for water at Nemea, where they became involved in the death of the child-hero [[Opheltes]]. There Adrastus held funeral games in Opheltes' honor, in which he won the horse race with his horse Arion. These games were said to have been the origin of the [[Nemean Games]].<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA318 p. 318]; Gantz, pp. 510&ndash;512; Tripp, s.vv. Adrastus (1), Opheltes, Seven against Thebes C; [[Pindar]], ''Nemean'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/pindar-nemean_odes/1997/pb_LCL485.95.xml 8.50&ndash;51], [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/pindar-nemean_odes/1997/pb_LCL485.115.xml 10.26&ndash;28] with Races' note 13; [[Bacchylides]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0199.tlg001.perseus-eng1:9 9.10&ndash;24]; [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.6.4 3.6.4]. For the horse race see also [[Propertius]], ''Elegies'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/propertius-elegies/1990/pb_LCL018.211.xml 2.37&ndash;38]; [[Statius]], ''[[Thebaid (Latin poem)|Thebaid]]'' [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/statius-thebaid/2004/pb_LCL207.349.xml 6.301&ndash;530] (which has Arion being driven by Adrastus' son-in law [[Polynices]], finishing first, but pulling an empty chariot, Polynices having been thrown off along the way). Compare with [[Callimachus]], fr. 223 Trypanis and Whitman [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/callimachus-iambi/1973/pb_LCL421.155.xml?rskey=H0uMeJ&result=1 pp. 154, 155].</ref>

As the seer Amphiaraus had foretold, the expedition ended in disaster at Thebes. All of the champions perished, except for Adrastus who was saved by the speed of his divine horse Arion.<ref>Hard, [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA321 p. 321]; Gantz, p. 517; ''[[Thebaid (Greek poem)|Thebaid]]'' fr. 11 West, [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/greek_epic_fragments_theban_cycle_thebaid/2003/pb_LCL497.53.xml pp. 52&ndash;55]; [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.6.8 3.6.8]; [[Strabo]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0099.tlg001.perseus-eng1:9.2.11 9.2.11]; [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng1:8.25.8 8.25.8]; Pancrates of Alexandria (Page, [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/select_papyri_poetry_elegiac_hexameter_poems/1941/pb_LCL360.519.xml pp. 518, 519]).</ref> According to accounts first occurring in fifth-century BC Greek tragedy, after the failed assault on Thebes, [[Creon of Thebes|Creon]], who with the death of Etecles became the new ruler of Thebes, forbade the burial of the expeditions' dead. Athenian tradition held that [[Theseus]], the king and founder-hero of [[Athens]], assisted Adrastus in recovering the bodies of his fallen comrades.<ref>Hard, pp. [https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA321 321]&ndash;[https://books.google.com/books?id=r1Y3xZWVlnIC&pg=PA322 322]; Gantz, pp. 296–297, 519&ndash;522; Tripp, s.v. Seven against Thebes E; Oldfather's note 16 to [[Diodorus Siculus]], [https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Diodorus_Siculus/4D*.html#65 4.65.9]; Frazer, [https://archive.org/stream/pausaniassdescr07pausgoog#page/n553/mode/2up pp. 519&ndash;520]; [[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Apollodorus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0548.tlg001.perseus-eng1:3.7.1 3.7.1], with Frazer's note 2; [[Aeschylus]], ''Eleusinians'' (Sommerstein 2009b, [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/aeschylus-attributed_fragments/2009/pb_LCL505.57.xml pp. 56&ndash;57]); [[Euripides]], ''[[The Suppliants (Euripides)|Suppliants]]'' (Kovacs 1998, [https://www.loebclassics.com/view/euripides-suppliant_women/1998/pb_LCL009.5.xml pp. 4&ndash;6]); [[Plutarch]], ''Theseus'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0007.tlg001.perseus-eng2:29.4 29.4&ndash;5]. [[Herodotus]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0016.tlg001.perseus-eng1:9.27 9.27], says that, during the [[Battle of Plataea]] (479 BC), the Athenians cited the burial as one of the great achievements of Athens; compare with [[Lysias]], ''Funeral Oration'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0540.tlg002.perseus-eng1:7 7&ndash;10]; [[Isocrates]] ''Panegyricus'' [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0010.tlg011.perseus-eng1:54 54]. [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]], [http://data.perseus.org/citations/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0525.tlg001.perseus-eng1:1.39.2 1.39.2], reports seeing the tombs of the Seven on the road leading out of Eleusis.</ref>