Classical Mythology

THE THEBAN SAGA 399

who had attacked his own city. To leave the dead unburied was an offense
against the gods, for it was the religious duty of the relatives of the dead to give
them a pious burial. Antigone, as the sister of both Eteocles and Polynices, owed
such a burial to both brothers, even though she would be breaking Creon's edict
by burying Polynices. Alone (for Ismene refused to join in her defiance) she gave
him a symbolic burial by throwing three handfuls of dust over his corpse. For
this Creon condemned her to be buried alive. Antigone expresses her defiance
of Creon in words of unforgettable power (Sophocles, Antigone 441-455):

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CREON: Do you admit that you did this or deny it?

ANTIGONE: I admit it and I do not deny it.

CREON: Did you know that this was forbidden by my decree?

ANTIGONE: I knew it for it was clear to all.

CREON: And yet you dared to break these laws?

ANTIGONE: Yes, for it was not Zeus who gave me this decree, nor did Jus-

tice, the companion of the gods below, define such laws for human beings.

Nor did I think that your decrees were so strong that you, a mortal man,

could overrule the unwritten and unshaken laws of the gods.

Antigone was right. Creon's order defied the law of the gods, and he was
soon punished. His son Haemon attempted to save Antigone (to whom he was
engaged to be married) and, finding she had hanged herself in her tomb, killed
himself with his sword. Creon's wife, Eurydice, killed herself when she heard
the news of her son's death. Warned by Tiresias, Creon himself relented too late.
The Antigone of Sophocles, like his Oedipus Tyrannus, shows how human be-
ings cannot ignore the demands of the gods. Antigone is a heroine who is will-
ing to incur a lonely death rather than dishonor the gods by obeying the king's
command.^10

THE BURIAL OF THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

According to Euripides (in his tragedy The Suppliant Women) Adrastus and the
mothers of the Seven went to Eleusis (in Attica) as suppliants. Helped by Aethra,
mother of Theseus, they persuaded Theseus to attack Thebes and obtain an hon-
orable burial for the dead Argives. Theseus returned victorious with the corpses
of the heroes (other than Polynices, Amphiaraiis, and Adrastus himself), and
conducted their funeral rites. Capaneus was granted a separate pyre, and his
widow, Evadne, threw herself into its flames.

THE EPIGONI, SONS OF

THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES

ALCMAEON, SON OF AMPHIARAÙS

Amphiaraiis had ordered his sons to attack Thebes and to punish their mother,
Eriphyle, for her treachery in accepting the necklace of Harmonia from Poly-