The mythology of ancient Greece and Italy

482 MYTHOLOGY OF GREECE.
of three of the poems of the Epic Cycle, namely the Thebais,
the Epigoni and the Alcmaeonis, but intermixed as usual with
the arbitrary fictions of the tragedians. The wars of Thebes
shared in antiquity the popular interest with that of Troy
and their claims to credibility as historic facts are perhaps
equally well founded. For our own part, as we doubt of the
proper historic character of every part of the mythic story of
Hellas, we feel disposed to view in the destiny of the Lab-
dacids a fine fiction, or series of fictions, constructed on per-
haps a slight foundation of reality, with a moral or religious
object; to show how in the order of nature punishment is
provided for the most secret and even unconscious violation
of its laws, and how the sins of the parents are visited on the
children, which we must recognise to be a law of nature. As
usual, the names of the chief persons are significant ; Laios is
the Unlucky, CEdipodes the Swollen or Inflated, Eteocles Trueglorious,
Polyneices Strife-full, Antigone Contrary-birth*, and
so forth. There is also a moral intended to be conveyed in
the failure of the first expedition, led by arrogant boastful
chiefs, who despised the signs sent by the gods, and the suc-
cess of that conducted by their more pious sons, who acted
in obedience to the will of heaven. The story of Alcmaeon is
a parallel to that of Orestes, perhaps framed in imitation of
it ; and, as we may see, it is connected with the topography
of western Greece.
The cyclic poems have perished, as also has the Thebais of
Antimachus ; but the Thebais of the Latin poet Statius re-
mains, and the prose narratives of Apollodorus, Diodorus and
Hyginus, beside the scattered notices in the Scholiasts, Pau-
sanias and other authors. Of the dramas on this subject
there have come down to us the noble ' Seven against Thebes'
of ^Eschylus, the ' CEdipus King,' ' (Edipus at Colonos,' and
c Antigone' of Sophocles; and the c Phcenissae' and ' Sup-
pliants' of Euripides.
a Ismene, the other sister, was probably invented for the sake of uniformity.
*
;