When the Phoenician army under Cadmus invaded Boeotia, the Hyantes and the Aones were defeated; the Hyantes fled from the land when night came, but the Aones begged for mercy, and were allowed by Cadmus to remain and unite with the Phoenicians. The Aones still lived in village communities, but Cadmus built the city which even at the present day is called Cadmeia. Afterwards the city grew, and so the Cadmeia became the citadel of the lower city of Thebes. Cadmus made a brilliant marriage, if, as the Greek legend says, he indeed took to wife a daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. His daughters too have made him a name; Semele was famed for having a child by Zeus, Ino for being a divinity of the sea.
In the time of Cadmus, the greatest power, next after his, was in the hands of the Sparti, namely, Chthonius, Hyperenor, Pelorus and Udaeus, but it was Echion who, for his great valour, was preferred by Cadmus to be his son-in-law. As I was unable to discover anything new about these men, I adopt the story that makes their name result from the way in which they came into being. When Cadmus migrated to the Illyrian tribe of the Encheleans, Polydorus his son got the kingdom. Now Pentheus the son of Echion was also powerful by reason of his noble birth and friendship with the king. Being a man of insolent character who had shown impiety to Dionysus, he was punished by the god.
Polydorus had a son, Labdacus. When Polydorus was about to die, Labdacus was still a child, and so he was entrusted, along with the government, to the care of Nycteus. But Nycteus’ daughter Antiope had a name among the Greeks for beauty, and Epopeus came from Sicyon and carried her off. The Thebans went against him in arms, and in the battle Nycteus was wounded. Epopeus also was wounded, but won the day. Nycteus they carried back ill to Thebes, and when he was about to die, he appointed his brother Lycus to be regent of Thebes and Labdacus’s guardian. Afterwards Epopeus also died of his wound, which he had neglected at first, so that Lycus had now no need to wage war. For Lamedon, the son of Coronus, who became king after Epopeus, gave up Antiope. When Labdacus grew up, Lycus handed over to him the reins of government, but Labdacus too died shortly afterwards, and Lycus again became guardian, this time to Laius, the son of Labdacus.
While Lycus was regent for the second time, Antiope’s sons Amphion and Zethus gathered a force and came back to Thebes. Laius was secretly removed by such persons as were anxious that the race of Cadmus should not be forgotten by posterity, and Lycus was overcome by the sons of Antiope in the subsequent fighting. When they succeeded to the throne they added the lower city to the Cadmeia, giving it, beeause of their kinship to Thebe. the name of Thebes. What I have said is confirmed by what Homer says in the Odyssey:
who first laid the foundation of seven-gated Thebe,
and built towers about it, for without towers they could not
dwell in wide-wayed Thebe, in spite of their strength.
Homer, however, makes no mention in his poetry of Amphion’s singing, and how he built the wall to the music of his harp. Amphion won fame for his music, learning from the Lydians themselves the Lydian mode, because of his relationship to Tantalus, and adding three strings to the four old ones. The writer of the poem on Europa says that Amphion was the first harpist, and that Hermes wad his teacher. He also says that Amphion’d songs drew even stones and beasts after him. Myro of Byzantium, a poetess who wrote epic and elegiac poetry, states that Amphion was the first to set up an altar to Hermes, and for this reason was presented by him with a harp. It is also said that Amphion is punished in Hades for being among those who made a mock of Leto and her children. The punishment of Amphion is dealt with in the epic poem Minyad, which treats both of Amphion and also of Thamyris of Thrace. The houses of both Amphion and Zethus were visited by bereavement; Amphion’s was left desolate by plague, and the son of Zethus was killed through some mistake or other of his mother. Zethus himself died of a broken heart, and so Laius was restored by the Thebans to the kingdom.
When Laius was king and married to Iocasta, an oracle came from Delphi that, if Iocasta bore a child, Laius would meet his death at his son’s hands. Whereupon Oedipus was exposed, who was fated when he grew up to kill his father; he also married his mother. But I do not think that he had children by her; my witness is Homer, who says in the Odyssey:
And I saw the mother of Oedipodes, fair Epicaste,
who wrought a dreadful deed unwittingly,
marrying her son, who slew his father and
wedded her. But forthwith the gods made it known among men.
How could they have “made it known forthwith,” if Epicaste had borne four children to Oedipus? But the mother of these children was Euryganeia, daughter of Hyperphas. Among the proofs of this are the words of the author of the poem called the Oedipodia, and moreover, Onasias painted a picture at Plataea of Euryganeia bowed with grief because of the fight between her children.
Polyneices retired from Thebes while Oedipus was still alive and reigning, in fear lest the curses of the father should be brought to pass upon the sons. He went to Argos and married a daughter of Adrastus, but returned to Thebes, being fetched by Eteocles after the death of Oedipus. On his return he quarrelled with Eteocles, and so went into exile a second time. He begged Adrastus to give him a force to effect his return, but lost his army and fought a duel with Eteocles as the result of a challenge. Both fell in the duel, and the kingdom devolved on Laodamas, son of Eteocles; Creon, the son of Menoeceus, was in power as regent and guardian of Laodamas. Wben the latter had grown up and held the kingship, the Argives led their army for the second time against Thebes. The Thebans encamped over against them at Glisas. When they joined in battle, Aegialeus, the son of Adrastus, was killed by Laodamas; but the Argives were victorious in the fight, and Laodamas, with any Theban willing to accompany him, withdrew when night came to Illyria. The Argives captured Thebes and handed it over to Thersander, son of Polyneices.
When the expedition under Agamemnon against Troy mistook its course and the reverse in Mysia occurred, Thersander too met his death at the hands of Telephus. He had shown himself the bravest Greek at the battle; his tomb, the stone in the open part of the market-place, is in the city Elaea on the way to the plain of the Caicus, and the natives say that they sacrifice to him as to a hero.
On the way from Potniae to Thebes there is on the right of the road a small enclosure with pillars in it. Here they think the earth opened to receive Amphiaraus, and they add further that neither do birds sit upon these pillars, nor will a beast, tame or wild, graze on the grass that grows here.
In the circuit of the ancient wall of Thebes were gates seven in number, and these remain today. One got its name, I learned, from Electra, the sister of Cadmus, and another, the Proetidian, from a native of Thebes. He was Proetus, but I found it difficult to discover his date and lineage. The Neistan gate, they say, got its name for the following reason. The last of the harp’s strings they call nete, and Amphion invented it, they say, at this gate. I have also heard that the son of Zetes, the brother of Amphion, was named Neis, and that after him was this gate called. The Crenaean gate and the Hypsistan they so name for the following reason...[lacuna]...and by the Hypsistan is a sanctuary of Zeus surnamed Hypsistus (Most High). Next after these gates is the one called Ogygian, and lastly the Homoloid gate. It appeared to me too that the name of the last was the most recent, and the name of the Ogygian the most ancient. The name Homoloid is derived, they say, from the following circumstance. When the Thebans were beaten in battle by the Argives near Glisas, most of them withdrew along with Laodamas, the son of Eteocles. A portion of them shrank from the journey to Illyria, and turning aside to Thessaly they seized Homole, the most fertile and best-watered of the Thessalian mountains. When they were recalled to their homes by Thersander, the son of Polyneices, they called the gate through which they passed on their return the Homoloid gate, after Homole. The entry into Thebes from Plataea is by the Electran gate. At this, so they say, Capaneus, the son of Hipponous, was struck by lightning as he was making a more furious attack upon the fortifications.
This war between Argos and Thebes was, in my opinion, the most memorable of all those waged by Greeks against Greeks in what is called the heroic age. In the case of the war between the Eleusinians and the rest of the Athenians, and likewise in that between the Thebans and the Minyans, the attackers had but a short distance over which to pass to the fight, and one battle decided the war, immediately after which hostilities ceased and peace was made. But the Argive army marched from mid-Peloponnesus to mid-Boeotia, while Adrastus collected his allied forces out of Arcadia and from the Messenians, and likewise mercenaries came to the help of the Thebans from Phocis, and the Phlegyans from the Minyan country. When the battle took place at the Ismenian sanctuary, the Thebans were worsted in the encounter, and after the rout took refuge within their fortifications. As the Peloponnesians did not know how to assail the walls, and attacked with greater spirit than knowledge, many of them were killed by missiles hurled from the walls by the Thebans, who afterwards sallied forth and overcame the rest while they were in disorder, so that the whole army was destroyed with the exception of Adrastus. But the action was attended by severe losses to the Thebans, and from that time they term a “Cadmean victory” one that brings destruction to the victors. A few years afterwards Thebes was attacked by Thersander and those whom the Greeks call Epigonoi (Born-later). It is clear that they too were accompanied not only by the Argives, Messenians and Arcadians, but also by allies from Corinth and Megara invited to help them. Thebes too was defended by their neighbours, and a battle at Glisas was fiercely contested on both sides. Some of the Thebans escaped with Laodamas immediately after their defeat; those who remained behind were besieged and taken. About this war an epic poem also was written called the Thebaid. This poem is mentioned by Callinus, who says that the author was Homer, and many good authorities agree with his judgment. With the exception of the Iliad and Odyssey I rate the Thebaid more highly than any other poem.
So much for the war waged by the Argives against the Thebans on account of the sons of Oedipus.
Seven stades from Teumessus on the left are the ruins of Glisas, and before them on the right of the way a small mound shaded by cultivated trees and a wood of wild ones. Here were buried Promachus, the son of Parthenopaeus, and other Argive officers, who joined with Aegialeus, the son of Adrastus, in the expedition [of the Epigonoi] against Thebes. That the tomb of Aegialeus is at Pegae I have already stated in an earlier part of my history that deals with Megara.* On the straight road from Thebes to Glisas is a place surrounded by unhewn stones, called by the Thebans the Snake’s Head. This snake, whatever it was, popped its head, they say, out of its hole here, and Teiresias, chancing to meet it, cut off the head with his sword. This then is how the place got its name. Above Glisas is a mountain called Supreme, and on it a temple and image of Supreme Zeus. The river, a torrent, they call the Thermodon. Returning to Teumessus and the road to Chalcis, you come to the tomb of Chalcodon, who was killed by Amphitryon in a fight between the Thebans and the Euboeans.
* [Attica, xliv 4]: In Pagae there is also a hero-shrine of Aegialeus, son of Adrastos. When the Argives made their second attack on Thebes he died at Glisas early in the first battle, and his relatives carried him to Pagae in Megaris and buried him, the shrine being called the Aegialeum.