Seven Against Thebes

play by Aeschylus

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June 18, 2026

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"Seven Against Thebes" is a tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus. It recounts the story of the sons of Oedipus, Eteocles and Polyneices, who cursed each other and engaged in a battle for control of the city of Thebes. The play details the assault on Thebes' seven gates by seven champions, including Polyneices, against the city's defenders led by Eteocles. The conflict results in the deaths of both brothers and the other champions, fulfilling their father's curse and leading to the eventual conquest of Thebes by the next generation of heroes, the Epigoni.1

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Aeschylus
Seven Against Thebes
This is the third and only surviving play of a connected trilogy, presented in 467 bc, that dealt with the impious transgressions of Laius and the doom subsequently inflicted upon his descendants. The first play seems to have shown how Laius, king…
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This is the third and only surviving play of a connected trilogy, presented in 467 bc, that dealt with the impious transgressions of Laius and the doom subsequently inflicted upon his descendants. The first play seems to have shown how Laius, king…
Read More

Eleaticism
Logical and linguistic approach
…his Hepta epi Thēbais (Seven Against Thebes), judged it very appropriate that Helen would have destroyed Troy, because her name—naively derived from helein (“destroy”) and naus (“ship”)—marked her as a destroyer of ships. Here nomen est omen: the language is not merely a symbol but corresponds to reality in…
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…his Hepta epi Thēbais (Seven Against Thebes), judged it very appropriate that Helen would have destroyed Troy, because her name—naively derived from helein (“destroy”) and naus (“ship”)—marked her as a destroyer of ships. Here nomen est omen: the language is not merely a symbol but corresponds to reality in…
Read More