The Seven Against Thebes Of Aeschylus

Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays can still be read or performed, the others being Sophocles and Euripides. He is often described as the father of tragedy: our knowledge of the genre begins with his work and our understanding of earlier tragedies is largely based on inferences from his surviving plays. Only seven of his estimated seventy to ninety plays have survived into modern times. Fragments of some other plays have survived in quotes and more continue to be discovered on Egyptian papyrus, often giving us surprising insights into his work.

The third and final play in Aeschylus' Oedipodea trilogy, Seven Against Thebes is the only one of the three plays that has survived intact to this day. During the course of the action-packed play, seven would-be usurpers storm the city's gates in a series of brutal attacks. Will the family -- still weakened by the curse put on its patriarch, Oedipus -- be able to marshal the strength to fight back?

The Seven Against Thebes of Aeschylus by Aeschylus. This book is a reproduction of the original book published in 1878 and may have some imperfections such as marks or hand-written notes.

A study of the last drama of Aeschylus' trilogy concerned with the fortunes of the house of Laius that ends with the story of Oedipus' sons, the enemy brothers, who self-destruct in mutual fratricide but thereby save the besieged city of Thebes. The book's findings, however, far exceed these limits to explore the relationships between language and kinship, as between family and city, self and society, and Greek ideas about the nature of human development and identity.