num_pages: 174
description: Accessible introductions to ancient tragedies. Each volume discussesthe main themes of a play and the central developments in moderncriticism, while also addressing the play's historical context and thehistory of its performance and adaptation.One of our earliest surviving Greek tragedies, Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebesis an extraordinarily rich poetic text. It dramatises the civil warbetween the sons of Oedipus ?Polynices, the exile, and Eteocles,reigning king of Thebes. Polynices marches on Thebes to regain histhrone along with six other champion warriors and their armies, but theexpedition is doomed, and the meaning of Oedipus' enigmatic curse on hissons ultimately becomes clear through their simultaneous fratricide andthe extinction of the Theban house.This book places the dramawithin the context of the connected trilogy of which it was a part. Itinvestigates the play's tensions between city and family and theomnipresence of curse and ritual within the religious and politicalenvironment of fifth century Greece. The drama's focus on the world ofmale warriors, and its stark opposition of the sexes through the femaleChorus, is analysed in terms of warrior ideology in epic and Greekunderstanding of appropriate behaviour. Finally, it explores the complexlegacy of the play through its influence on Sophocles and Euripides,and shows how the drama's condemnation of civil war has been exploitedas an analogue for events in modern history.
language: English
title: Aeschylus: Seven Against Thebes
titlecomplete: Aeschylus: Seven Against Thebes (Companions to Greek and Roman Tragedy)
ratings_count: 16
publisher: Bristol Classical Press