Seven against Thebes

American  

noun

1. (used with a plural verb) seven heroes, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Eteoclus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Polynices, and Tydeus, who led an expedition against Thebes to depose Eteocles in favor of his brother Polynices: the expedition failed, but the Epigoni, the sons of the Seven against Thebes, conquered the city ten years later.

2. (used with a singular verb) a tragedy (468? b.c.) by Aeschylus.

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Seven against Thebes British  

plural noun

1. Greek myth the seven members of an expedition undertaken to regain for Polynices, a son of Oedipus, his share in the throne of Thebes from his usurping brother Eteocles. The seven are usually listed as Polynices, Adrastus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Hippomedon, Tydeus, and Parthenopaeus. The campaign failed and the warring brothers killed each other in single combat before the Theban walls See also Adrastus

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Example Sentences

But before that Atalanta had borne a son, Parthenopaeus, who was one of the Seven against Thebes.

From "Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes" by Edith Hamilton

The Seven against Thebes was performed in 472.

From Authors of Greece by Lumb, T. W.

To this crime of Laius, the Scholiast to the Seven against Thebes attributes all the evils which afterwards befell the royal house of Thebes, and Euripides made it the subject of a tragedy.

From A Problem in Greek Ethics Being an inquiry into the phenomenon of sexual inversion by Symonds, John Addington

The "Seven against Thebes" includes in its cast of characters Eteocles, King of Thebes, Antigone and Ismene, Sisters of the King, a Messenger and a Herald.

From Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and the Seven Against Thebes by Buckley, Theodore Alois

Five years after The Persians, in 467 B. C., the play which we call the Seven against Thebes was presented at Athens.

From Suppliant Maidens and Other Plays by Morshead, E. D. A. (Edmund Doidge Anderson)