ABSTRACT
After a short time Eteocles and Polynices quarrelled, and Eteocles, supported by Creon, banished his brother. Creon attempted to force Oedipus, who was now in sanctuary at Colonus, near Athens, to return to Thebes, as an oracle had predicted that the place he lived and died in would be especially fortunate; Oedipus, however, refused to come, and Theseus, king of Athens, drove Creon away. Then Polynices led an Argive army with the Seven Champions against Thebes. In the fighting he lost his life in single combat against Eteocles, who also met his death. One of Creon’s sons, Megareus, died in the siege, and another, Menoeceus, in obedience to an oracle, killed himself to ensure victory for the Thebans, leaping from the walls into a serpent’s lair. Creon buried Eteocles’ body with honour; but Polynices he ordered to be cast out in the dust of the plain, with a ban on his burial and a guard of soldiers to ensure that it was not attempted. When Antigone, Oedipus’ daughter, who was betrothed to Creon’s youngest son Haemon, defied the ban, she was caught by the soldiers and brought to Creon, who punished her by entombing her alive. Tiresias warned Creon to bury the dead and disinter
the living, and Creon complied, but when, after burying Polynices’ body, he came to the sepulchre of Antigone, he found that she had already hanged herself in the tomb. Haemon, after vainly protesting at his father’s act, ran on his own sword; and then Eurydice, Creon’s wife, on hearing of the death of her last surviving son, stabbed herself. Creon lived on, acting as regent for Eteocles’ small son Laodamas.
