Epigoni

In Greek mythology, Epigoni (/ɪˈpɪɡənaɪ/; from Greek: Ἐπίγονοι, meaning "offspring") are the sons of the Argive heroes who had fought and been killed in the first Theban war, the subject of the Thebaid, in which Polynices and six allies (the Seven Against Thebes) attacked Thebes because Polynices' brother, Eteocles, refused to give up the throne as promised. The second Theban war, also called the war of the Epigoni, occurred ten years later, when the Epigoni, wishing to avenge the death of their fathers, attacked Thebes.

According to the Bibliotheca, they were:

To this list, Pausanias also adds:

The war

Both Apollodorus and Pausanias tell the story of the war of the Epigoni, although their accounts differ in several respects. According to Apollodorus, the Delphic oracle had promised victory if Alcmaeon was chosen their leader, and so he was. Aegialeus was killed by Laodamas, son of Eteocles, but Alcmaeon killed Laodamas. The Thebans were defeated and, by the counsel of the seer Teiresias, fled their city. However, Pausanias says that Thersander was their leader, that Laodamas fled Thebes with the rest of the Thebans, and that Thersander became king of Thebes.

Epigoni (epic)

Epigoni (Greek: Ἐπίγονοι, Epigonoi, "Progeny") was an early Greek epic, a sequel to the Thebaid and therefore grouped in the Theban cycle. Some ancient authors seem to have considered it a part of the Thebaid and not a separate poem.

According to one source the epic extended to 7,000 lines of verse. It told the story of the last battle for Thebes by the Epigoni, the children of the heroes who had previously fought for the city. Only the first line is now known:

Additional references, without verbal quotations, suggest that the myth of the death of Procris and the story of Teiresias's daughter Manto formed part of the Epigoni.

The epic was sometimes ascribed to Homer, but Herodotus doubted this attribution. According to the Scholia on Aristophanes there was an alternative attribution to "Antimachus". This presumably means Antimachus of Teos, and for this reason another verse line attributed without title to Antimachus of Teos is conjecturally thought to belong to the Epigoni. An alternative explanation for the naming of Antimachus here would be that the later epic poet Antimachus of Colophon had been accused of stealing the traditional Epigoni by incorporating its plot in his literary epic Thebais.

Epigoni (play)

The Epigoni (Ancient Greek: Ἐπίγονοι, Epigonoi, "progeny") is an ancient Greek tragedy written by the Greek playwright Sophocles in the 5th century BC and based on Greek mythology.

According to myth, Polynices and six allies (the Seven Against Thebes) attacked Thebes because Polynices' brother, Eteocles, refused to give up the throne as promised. All but one (Adrastus) of the seven would-be conquerors were killed. Their children swore vengeance and attacked Thebes. This was called the war of the Epigonoi ("the offspring, the next generation"); the story had been told, before Sophocles, in the lost epic Epigonoi. These Epigonoi defeated and killed (or drove out) Laodamas, son of Eteocles, and conquered Thebes, installing Thersander on the throne. All of the Epigonoi but Aegialeus, the son of Adrastus, or else Alcmaeon, son of Amphiaraus, survived this battle.

Amphiaraus had known that the attack against Thebes was doomed to fail and had not wanted to partake, but was coerced to do so by his wife Eriphyle, who had been bribed by Polynices. Amphiaraus had instructed his son Alcmaeon to avenge him against his mother, and Alcmaeon killed her, either before or after the war of the Epigonoi, depending on the version of the myth. Alcmaeon was then pursued by the Erinyes, similar to the fate of Orestes after killing his mother Clytemnestra.