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[1] The first to occupy the land of Thebes are said to have been the Ectenes, whose king was Ogygus, an aboriginal. From his name is derived Ogygian, which is an epithet of Thebes used by most of the poets. The Ectenes perished, they say, by pestilence, and after them there settled in the land the Hyantes and the Aones, who I think were Boeotian tribes and not foreigners.
[2] When the Phoenician army under Kadmos invaded the land these tribes were defeated; the Hyantes fled from the land when night came, but the Aones begged for mercy, and were allowed by Kadmos to remain and unite with the Phoenicians. The Aones still lived in village communities, but Kadmos built the city which even at the present day is called Kadmeia. Afterwards the city grew, and so the Kadmeia became the citadel of the lower city of Thebes. Kadmos made a brilliant marriage, if, as the Greek story [
logos] has it, he indeed took to wife a daughter of Aphrodite and Ares. His daughters too have made him a name; Semele was famed for having a child by Zeus, Ino for being a divinity of the sea.
[3] In the time of Kadmos, the greatest power, next after his, was in the hands of the Spartoi, namely, Khthonios, Hyperenor, Pelorus and Oudaios; but it was Ekhion who, for his great valor, was preferred by Kadmos to be his son-in-law. As I was unable to discover anything new about these men, I adopt the story that makes their name result from the way in which they came into being. When Kadnios migrated to the Illyrian tribe of the Encheleans, Polydoros his son got the kingdom.
[4] Now Pentheus the son of Echion was also powerful by reason of his noble birth and friendship with the king. Being a man of insolent character who had shown impiety to Dionysus, he was punished by the god. Polydoros had a son, Labdacus. When Polydoros was about to die, Labdacus was still a child, and so he was entrusted, along with the government, to the care of Nycteus.
[5] The sequel of this story, how Nycteus died, and how the care of the boy with the sovereignty of Thebes devolved on Lykos, the brother of Nycteus, I have already set forth in my account of Sikyon.
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When Labdacus grew up, Lykos handed over to him the reins of government; but Labdacus too died shortly afterwards, and Lykos again became guardian, this time to Laios, the son of Labdacus.
[6] While Lykos was regent for the second time, Amphion and Zethus gathered a force and came back to Thebes. Laios was secretly removed by such as were anxious that the lineage of Kadmos should not be forgotten by posterity, and Lykos was overcome in the fighting by the sons of Antiope. When they succeeded to the throne they added the lower city to the Cadmeia, giving it, because of their kinship to Thebe, the name of Thebes.
[7] What I have said is confirmed by what Homer says in the
Odyssey:
“Who first laid the foundation of seven-gated Thebe,
And built towers about it, for without towers they could not
Dwell in wide-wayed Thebe, in spite of their strength.”
Odyssey 11.263
And built towers about it, for without towers they could not
Dwell in wide-wayed Thebe, in spite of their strength.”
Homer, however, makes no mention in his poetry of Amphion’s singing, and how he built the wall to the music of his harp. Amphion won fame for his music, learning from the Lydians themselves the Lydian mode, because of his relationship to Tantalos, and adding three strings to the four old ones.
[8] The writer of the poem on Europa says that Amphion was the first harpist, and that Hermes was his teacher. He also says that Amphion’s songs drew even stones and beasts after him. Myro of Byzantium, a poetess who wrote epic and elegiac poetry, states that Amphion was the first to set up an altar to Hermes, and for this reason was presented by him with a harp. It is also said that Amphion is punished in Hades for being among those who made a mock of Leto and her children.
[9] The punishment of Amphion is dealt with in the epic poem
Minyad, which treats both of Amphion and also of Thamyris of Thrace. The houses of both Amphion and Zethus were visited by bereavement; Amphion’s was left desolate by plague, and the son of Zethus was killed through some mistake or other of his mother. Zethus himself died of a broken heart, and so Laios was restored by the Thebans to the kingdom.
[10] When Laios was king and married to Iocasta, an oracle came from Delphi that, if Iocasta bore a child, Laios would meet his death at his son’s hands. Whereupon Oedipus was exposed, who was fated when he grew up to kill his father; he also married his mother. But I do not think that he had children by her; my witness is Homer, who says in the
Odyssey:
[11]
“And I saw the mother of Oedipodes, fair Epicaste,
Who wrought a dreadful deed unwittingly,
Marrying her son, who slew his father and
Wedded her. But forthwith the gods made it known among men.”
Odyssey 11.271
Who wrought a dreadful deed unwittingly,
Marrying her son, who slew his father and
Wedded her. But forthwith the gods made it known among men.”
How could they “have made it known forthwith,” if Epicaste had borne four children to Oedipus? But the mother of these children was Euryganeia, daughter of Hyperphas. Among the proofs of this are the words of the author of the poem called the
Oedipodia; and moreover, Onasias painted a picture at Plataea of Euryganeia bowed with grief because of the fight between her children.
[12] Polyneikes retired from Thebes while Oedipus was still alive and reigning, in fear lest the curses of the father should be brought to pass upon the sons. He went to Argos and married a daughter of Adrastos, but returned to Thebes, being fetched by Eteokles after the death of Oedipus. On his return he quarrelled with Eteokles, and so went into exile a second time. He begged Adrastos to give him a force to effect his return, but lost his army and fought a duel with Eteokles as the result of a challenge.
[13] Both fell in the duel, and the kingdom devolved on Laodamas, son of Eteokles; Creon, the son of Menoeceus, was in power as regent and guardian of Laodamas. When the latter had grown up and held the kingship, the Argives led their army for the second time against Thebes. The Thebans encamped over against them at Glisas. When they joined in battle, Aigialeus, the son of Adrastos, was killed by Laodamas but the Argives were victorious in the fight, and Laodamas, with any Theban willing to accompany him, withdrew when night came to Illyria.
[14] The Argives captured Thebes and handed it over to Thersandros, son of Polyneikes. When the expedition under Agamemnon against Troy mistook its course and the reverse in Mysia occurred, Thersandros too met his death at the hands of Telephus. He had shown himself the bravest Greek at the battle; his tomb, the stone in the open part of the marketplace, is in the city Elaea on the way to the plain of the Kaïkos, and the natives say that they sacrifice to him as to a hero.
[15] On the death of Thersandros, when a second expedition was being mustered to fight Alexander at Troy, Peneleos was chosen to command it, because Tisamenus, the son of Thersandros, was not yet old enough. When Peneleos was killed by Eurypylos, the son of Telephus, Tisamenus was chosen king, who was the son of Thersandros and of Demonassa, the daughter of Amphiaraos. The Furies of Laios and Oedipus did not vent their wrath on Tisamenus, but they did on his son Autesion, so that, at the bidding of the oracle, he migrated to the Dorians.
[16] On the departure of Autesion, Damasichthon was chosen to be king, who was a son of Opheltes, the son of Peneleos. This Damasichthon had a son Ptolemy, who was the father of Xanthos. Xanthos fought a duel with Andropompus, who killed him by craft and not in fair fight. Hereafter the Thebans thought it better to entrust the government to several people, rather than to let everything depend on one man.
Description of Greece. Pausanias. ed. W. H. S. Jones, ed. H. A. Ormerod, ed. Gregory Nagy. . .