Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/295

 PENTHEUS. - LABD AKUS. - LAIUS. - ANTIOrE. 263 Polydorus and Labdakus successively became kings of Thebes : the latter at his death left an infant son, Laius, who was deprived of his throne by Lykus. And here we approach the legend of Antiope, Zethus and Amphion, whom the fabulists insert at this point of the Theban series. Antiope" is here the daughter of Nyk- teus, the brother of Lykus. She is deflowered by Zeus, and then, while pregnant, flies to Epopeus king of Sikyon : Nykteus dying entreats his brother to avenge the injury, and Lykus accordingly invades Sikyon, defeats and kills Epopeus, and brings back Antiope prisoner to Thebes. In her way thither, in a cave near Eleutherae, which was shown to Pausanias, 1 she is delivered of the twin sons of Zeus Amphion and Zethus who, exposed to perish, are taken up and nourished by a shepherd, and pass their youth amidst herdsmen, ignorant of their lofty descent. Antiope is conveyed to Thebes, where, after undergoing a long persecution from Lykus and his cruel wife Dirke, she at length escapes, and takes refuge in the pastoral dwelling of her sons, now grown to manhood. Dirke pursues and requires her to be delivered up ; but the sons recognize and protect their mother, taking an ample revenge upon her persecutors. Lykus is slain, and Dirke is dragged to death, tied to the horns of a bull. 2 of the drama itself, in which Pentheus appears as a Conservative, resisting the introduction of the new religious rites. Taken in conjunction with the emphatic and submissive piety which reigns through the drama, they coun- tenance the supposition of Tyrwhitt, that Euripides was anxious to repel the imputations, so often made against him, of commerce with the philoso- phers and participation in sundry heretical opinions. Pacuvius in his Penthcns seems to have closely copied Euripides ; see Servius ad Virg. ^Eneid. iv. 469. The old Thespis had composed a tragedy on the subject of Pentheus : Suidas, 9e<T7nf ; also ^Eschylus ; compare his Eumenides, 25. According to Apollodorus (iii. 5, 5), Labdakus also perished in a similar way to Pentheus, and from the like impiety, knewy fypovuv Trapan^aia, 1 Pausan. i. 38, 9. 2 For the adventures of Antiope and her sons, see Apollodor. iii. 5 ; Pausan. ii. 6, 2 ; ix. 5, 2. The narrative given respecting Epopeus in the ancient Cyprian verses seems to have been very different from this, as far as we can judge from the brief notice in Proclus's Argument, wf 'ETrwTretJf (j>-&eipa<; rfiv Avuovpyov (AvKou) jvvaiKa Et-eTropftr/drj : it approaches more nearly to the story given in the seventh fable of Hygiuus, and followed by Propertius (iii. 15); thfl