Eteocles & Polynices

Cursed by their father to divide their inheritance by the sword, the brothers agreed to reign in alternate years; Eteocles refused to yield, and Polynices marched home with seven champions against the seven gates. Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes — in this library — builds gate by gate to the seventh, where brother meets brother. Both fall; and Creon’s decree over the two bodies opens the Antigone.