ARGUMENT.
When Œdipus king of Thebes discovered that he had unknowingly
been the murderer of his father, and had lived in incest with
his mother, he blinded himself. And his two sons, Eteocles and
Polyneikes, wishing to banish the remembrance of these horrors
from the eyes of men, at first kept him in confinement. And
he, being wroth with them, prayed that they might divide their
inheritance with the sword. And they, in fear lest the prayer
should be accomplished, agreed to reign in turn, each for a
year, and Eteocles, as the elder of the two, took the first turn.
But when at the end of the year Polyneikes came to ask for
the kingdom, Eteocles refused to give way, and sent him away
empty. So Polyneikes went to Argos and married the daughter
of Adrastos the king of that country, and gathered together
a great army under six great captains, himself coming as the
seventh, and led it against Thebes. And so they compassed
it about, and at each of the seven gates of the city was stationed
one of the divisions of the army.
