Epigonoi: the Sons of the Seven against Thebes (Part 2)

Only the first line of the the Epigonoi - the epic of the sons of the Seven against Thebes - survives.

In this video, we look at the myth behind that lost epic. It’s a less well known story, but has all the usual tropes: heroes striving to avenge and surpass their fathers; a scary monster; cursed clothing; treachery; matricide; pursuit by the Furies.

AI disclosure: the images in this video are (mostly) AI-generated. Nothing else in this video is AI-generated.

0:00 - Sthenelos' speech
0:22 - Intro
2:02 - Sources
2:52 - Seven against Thebes - recap
4:17 - Suppliant women; childhood of the Epigonoi
5:50 - the Epigonoi come of age; catalogue
07:59 - Thersandros raises an army and bribes Eriphyle
09:04 - the Epigonoi set out; Teumessian Fox
10:00 - battle of Glisas; sack of Thebes
11:20 - Alkmaion kills Eriphyle
12:26 - Alkmaion's travails and the necklace of Harmonia
14:32 - Diomedes and Amphilochos after the war
15:20 - Manto after the war

Quoted primary sources:
Homer, Iliad IV.405-410
Epigonoi, l. 1
Euripides, Suppliant Women ll.1213 – 1226
Statius, Thebaid II. 269 – 296
Sophocles, Epigonoi, fragment

Other primary sources:
Ps-Apollodoros, III.5-7
Diodorus Siculus. IV.66
Homer, Iliad II.564-566; V; VI.20; XXIII.676-699
Ovid Metamorphoses
Pausanias, IX
Aeschylus, Seven against Thebes
Herodotus. III.91
Dante, Inferno Canto 20


Secondary Sources
Hugh G. Evelyn-White – Hesiod, the Homeric Hymns and Homerica
Robert Graves – the Greek Myths. 107h
Malcom Davies (1989) – the Greek Epic Cycle
Malcom Davies (2014) – The Theban Epics
Ettore Cingano – Epigonoi, in Fantuzzi and Tsagalis The Greek Epic Cycle and its Ancient Reception, a Companion (2015)
Robert M. Durling and Ronald L. Martinez – The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri Volume I: Inferno.

Captions now edited.

#greekmythology #ancientgreece #mythology