Thebes — City of Oedipus
⚡ Quick Facts
Cadmus and the Dragon's Teeth
Thebes was founded by Cadmus, a Phoenician prince who came to Greece searching for his sister Europa (abducted by Zeus). The Oracle at Delphi told him to abandon the search and instead follow a cow marked with a moon symbol. Where the cow collapsed from exhaustion, he was to build a city.
The cow led him to Boeotia. Before building, Cadmus sent his companions to fetch water from a nearby spring, but the spring was guarded by a dragon sacred to Ares. The dragon killed most of his men. Cadmus slew the dragon and, on Athena's advice, sowed its teeth in the ground. Armed warriors — the Spartoi — sprang up. Cadmus threw a stone among them, and they attacked each other until only five survived. These five became the founding families of Thebes.
The Curse of Oedipus
Thebes' darkest chapter belongs to Oedipus, who unknowingly killed his father King Laius and married his mother Jocasta, fulfilling the terrible prophecy the family had tried so desperately to escape. When the truth was revealed, Jocasta hanged herself and Oedipus blinded himself with her brooches.
The curse continued through Oedipus' children. His sons Eteocles and Polynices killed each other in battle, and his daughter Antigone was condemned to death for defying King Creon's order not to bury Polynices — a story that became one of Sophocles' greatest tragedies.
Birthplace of Dionysus
Thebes was also the birthplace of Dionysus. His mother Semele was a Theban princess who was tricked by Hera into demanding Zeus reveal his true form. The sight of the god's divine radiance burned her to ash, but Zeus rescued the unborn Dionysus and sewed him into his own thigh until the child was ready to be born.
Cadmus, Harmonia and their unlucky daughters
After killing the dragon, Cadmus had to serve Ares for a "great year," which Apollodorus says was eight years, to atone for the death of the god's serpent. He was then given Harmonia, daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, as his wife. Their wedding on the Cadmeia, the Theban acropolis, was one of only two mortal weddings the gods attended in person. The other was that of Peleus and Thetis. The Muses sang, and Pausanias was shown the spot where they were said to have performed. Harmonia received a necklace made by Hephaestus. It brought disaster to whoever owned it. Polynices later used it to bribe Eriphyle into sending her husband Amphiaraus to his death against Thebes.
Hesiod names their children as Ino, Semele, Agave, Autonoe and a son, Polydorus. Nearly every one of them came to grief. Semele was burned up by Zeus's true form. Ino, who nursed the infant Dionysus, was driven mad by Hera and leapt into the sea with her son Melicertes, after which both became sea deities, Leucothea and Palaemon. Autonoe's son Actaeon was torn apart by his own hounds after he saw Artemis bathing. Agave, in Euripides' Bacchae, joins the maenads on Mount Cithaeron and tears apart her own son Pentheus, king of Thebes, who had refused to accept Dionysus as a god. Cadmus and Harmonia ended their lives far from Thebes, in Illyria, where they were turned into serpents and, in Euripides' version, carried off to the Isles of the Blessed or Elysium.
Herodotus credits Cadmus's Phoenician followers with bringing the alphabet to Greece. He reports seeing "Cadmean letters" on tripods in the temple of Ismenian Apollo at Thebes.
The walls of Amphion and Zethus
A second founding story competes with Cadmus's. Homer, in the Odyssey, says that Amphion and Zethus, twin sons of Zeus and Antiope, first founded seven-gated Thebes and built its walls. Mighty though they were, they could not live in the city's wide spaces without walls. Later writers add that Zethus hauled stones by brute strength while Amphion's lyre made the stones move into place by themselves. Amphion married Niobe, whose boast against Leto cost her all her children. Before they took the city, the twins punished Dirce, wife of the regent Lycus, for her cruelty to their mother by tying her to a bull. A spring at Thebes bore her name. The two foundation legends were reconciled by making the twins rule in a gap between Cadmean kings, between Labdacus and his son Laius.
Thebes was also the home of Heracles. He was born there to Alcmene and her husband Amphitryon, who had gone into exile at Thebes. The blind seer Tiresias belonged to the city too and advised its kings for generations, from Cadmus to the time of the Epigoni.
The Seven and the Epigoni
After Oedipus fell, Eteocles and Polynices agreed to alternate the throne. Eteocles refused to give it up, and Polynices went to Argos, married a daughter of King Adrastus, and raised an army. Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes lists a champion for each of the seven gates. The usual list is Adrastus (or Eteoclus), Polynices, Tydeus, Capaneus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus and Amphiaraus, though the names vary from source to source. Capaneus boasted that not even Zeus could stop him and was struck by a thunderbolt on the ladder. Amphiaraus, a seer who had foreseen the disaster, was swallowed alive by the earth with his chariot as he fled, and later had an oracle at Oropus. Only Adrastus escaped, on his divine horse Arion. Ten years later the sons of the Seven, the Epigoni, came back and sacked Thebes.
Earlier versions of the Oedipus story differ from Sophocles'. In the Odyssey his mother is called Epicaste. She hangs herself when the truth comes out, but Oedipus goes on ruling Thebes in misery, and the Iliad mentions funeral games held for him. The self-blinding and exile come from tragedy. Some accounts attribute the family's curse to Laius's abduction of Chrysippus, the son of Pelops. The Sphinx was said to have been sent by Hera, or in other accounts by Ares or Dionysus, to punish the city.
Boeotian Thebes, not Egyptian Thebes
Homer's "hundred-gated Thebes," with its treasure houses, is the Egyptian city of Thebes (modern Luxor). Greek Thebes is always "seven-gated." Historical Thebes was a major power in its own right. It defeated Sparta at Leuctra in 371 BC under Epaminondas. Its Sacred Band of 150 pairs of lovers was destroyed by Philip II at Chaeronea in 338 BC. Alexander razed the city in 335 BC but spared the house of the poet Pindar. Excavations on the Cadmeia have found a Mycenaean palace with Linear B tablets, along with a hoard of Near Eastern cylinder seals. That fits, at least loosely, with the legend of a founder from the east.
Ancient sources
- Hesiod, Theogony 975–978 — Harmonia bears Cadmus Ino, Semele, Agave, Autonoe and Polydorus.
- Homer, Odyssey 11.260–280 — Antiope's sons Amphion and Zethus found and wall Thebes, and Epicaste's suicide while Oedipus continues to rule.
- Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes — the assault on the seven gates and the mutual killing of Eteocles and Polynices.
- Euripides, Bacchae — Dionysus returns to Thebes, and Pentheus is torn apart by Agave and the women of the city.
- Apollodorus, Library 3.4–3.7 — the most complete narrative, from Cadmus through Oedipus, the Seven and the Epigoni.
- Herodotus, Histories 5.57–61 — Cadmus's Phoenicians and the "Cadmean letters" seen at Thebes.
Frequently asked questions
Why was Thebes called seven-gated?
The legends give it seven gates, built with the walls of Amphion and Zethus. Each gate was attacked by one of the Seven. Pausanias names them, and the names of several, including the Electran, Proetid and Neistan gates, also appear in the tragedians.
Who founded Thebes?
Two traditions exist. In one, Cadmus founded the Cadmeia after slaying Ares' dragon. In the other, Homer credits the twins Amphion and Zethus with founding the lower city and its walls.
Is Greek Thebes the same as Egyptian Thebes?
No. They are completely different cities. The Egyptian one, modern Luxor, got its Greek name from Greek visitors. Homer's "hundred-gated" Thebes is the Egyptian city.
Which gods were born in Thebes?
Dionysus, son of the Theban princess Semele. Heracles was also born there and later became a god.