Seven Against Thebes

Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes was the final tragedy performed in a “trilogy” dramatizing the myths of Oedipus (See: Background). In ancient Athens, tragedies were typically produced within such trilogies—that is, sets of three tragedies performed in succession. Sometimes these trilogies dramatized connected myths, though this was not a requirement. In fact, it seems to have been quite rare for trilogies to dramatize connected myths after the time of Aeschylus.

Trilogies were always followed by a fourth play, conventionally a satyr play that used a Chorus of satyrs to imbue a mythical subject with elements of humor and burlesque. The tragic trilogy plus the following satyr play formed a dramatic unit known as the tetralogy. Tetralogies by several different playwrights were typically performed at dramatic contests that made up an important part of religious festivals in Athens, notably the City Dionysia celebrated every year in the spring. The tetralogy containing Seven Against Thebes won first prize at the City Dionysia of 467 BCE.

The first two plays performed in the trilogy that ended with Seven Against Thebes were called Laius and Oedipus. Unfortunately, both of these plays have been lost, and very little is known about their plots. The satyr play performed after the tragic trilogy, titled Sphinx, has also been lost.

Greek tragedies often began with a Prologue scene preceding the entrance of the Chorus. Such prologues typically functioned to introduce the background or basic plot of the play. Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes begins with such a Prologue. In it, Eteocles addresses the citizens of Thebes and talks to them about the army that is laying siege to their city. Eteocles does not dwell on the causes of the war, but this information would have been well-known to an audience familiar with the mythical tradition of Oedipus and his family, which would have also been dramatized in the two tragedies preceding Seven Against Thebes in the trilogy.

The siege Eteocles speaks about would have started when Eteocles refused to honor his agreement to share the throne of Thebes with his brother, Polynices. Polynices, hurt and angry, recruited an army of Argive heroes to help him seize Thebes from his brother. Eteocles himself is responsible, in no small part, for bringing about the war he is now resisting with so much determination. Although Eteocles does not shirk his duty to defend his city—already in the very first lines of the play (and repeatedly later on) he compares his role as ruler of the city to the role of a herdsman guiding a ship through stormy seas—he does not quite assume responsibility for bringing about the terrible war. In fact, he speaks with scorn of those who thank the gods “if we win success” (4) but blame their rulers “if […] there is disaster” (5), evidently shirking his responsibility for the war. Throughout the play, it becomes clear that Eteocles blames the war primarily on fate and the hereditary Curse of Oedipus (See: Symbols & Motifs), a fixture of the Oedipus myths that increasingly assumes a central causal role in the play.

Eteocles thus introduces the theme of Human Agency Versus Divine Forces, one of the conflicts that define the play. Eteocles consistently invokes the gods to pray for the city’s salvation, but this does not mean that he devalues the role of human agency in ensuring this salvation. He thus urges the people of Thebes to do their part in defending the city, “each of you to such duties as befit you” (13). Of course, Eteocles is speaking primarily to the male citizens of Thebes, as becomes clear in his rather aggressive interactions with the Chorus: Making sacrifice, devising strategies, and fighting against the enemy are all “men’s part” (230), while what women should do is “be silent and stay within doors” (232). Eteocles’s view of human agency is conditioned by the misogyny of the ancient Greeks.

The Chorus that clashes with Eteocles in the first episode represents the women—specifically the young women—of Thebes. While Eteocles represents the masculine aspect of ancient warfare and heroism, the Chorus gives voice to the feminine side of war. As women, the members of the Chorus are more acutely cognizant of The Horrors of War. Where Eteocles sees a chance for glory, the Chorus sees a god-sent horror virtually tantamount to a natural disaster: Hence, for example, their reference to the “great tide” (80) of enemy horsemen, or their comparison of the approaching invaders to “a resistless mountain waterfall” (86).

Above all, the Chorus fears the fate of women taken captive when their city is conquered, losing their home and their freedom to become “a spear booty, a slave” (323). As the Chorus reflects, “even the dead / are better off than this” (336-37). War, as the Chorus sees it, is a zero-sum game, glorious only for the victors—and while the male warriors are spared their shame by dying, the women who are taken captive and enslaved must endure their shame for the rest of their lives. In a way, then, it is no surprise that the Chorus, robbed of their agency by their sex (and by the authoritarian Eteocles), put all their faith in the gods: For the Chorus, only the gods can stave off disaster.