Thebes_, is believed to be due to two lines of Aristophanes in his
_Frogs_ (406 B.C.), where he describes Aeschylus' play as
"the Seven against Thebes, a drama instinct with War, which any one
who beheld must have yearned to be a warrior." This is rather an
excellent _description_ of the play than the title of it, and could
not be its Aeschylean name, for the very sufficient reason that
Thebes is not mentioned in the play at all. Aeschylus, in fact, was
poetizing an earlier legend of the fortress of Cadmus. This being
premised, we may adopt, under protest as it were, the Aristophanic
name which has accrued to the play. It is the third part of a
Trilogy which might have been called, collectively, _The House of
Laius_. Sophocles and Euripides give us _their_ versions of the
legend, which we may epitomize, without, however, affirming that
they followed exactly the lines of Aeschylus Trilogy--they, for
instance, speak freely of _Thebes_. Laius, King of Thebes, married
Iokaste; he was warned by Apollo that if he had any children ruin
would befall his house. But a child was born, and, to avoid the
threatened catastrophe, without actually killing the child he
exposed it on Mount Cithaeron, that it should die. Some herdsmen
saved it and gave it over to the care of a neighbouring king and
queen, who reared it. Later on, learning that there was a doubt of
his parentage, this child, grown now to maturity, left his foster
parents and went to Delphi to consult the oracle, and received a
mysterious and terrible warning, that he was fated to slay his
father and wed his mother. To avoid this horror, he resolved never
to approach the home of his supposed parents. Meantime his real
father, Laius, on _his_ way to consult the god at Delphi, met his
unknown son returning from that shrine--a quarrel fell out, and the
younger man slew the elder. Followed by his evil destiny, he
wandered on, and found the now kingless Thebes in the grasp of the