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 SIEGES OF THEBES. 269 could borrow. The subject was also handled in some of the He- siodic poems, but we do not know to what extent.' The Thebai's was composed more in honor of Argos than of Thebes, as the first line of it, one of the few fragments still preserved, beto kens. 2 SIEGES OF THEDES. The legend, about to recount fraternal dissension of the most implacable kind, comprehending in its results not only the imme- diate relations of the infuriated brothers, but many chosen com- panions of the heroic race along with them, takes its start from the paternal curse of QEdipus, which overhangs and determines all the gloomy sequel. CEdipus, though king of Thebes and father of four children by Euryganeia (according to the QEdipodia), has become the de- voted victim of the Erinnyes, in consequence of the self-inflicted death of his mother, which he has unconsciously caused, as well as of his unintentional parricide. Though he had long forsworn the use of all the ornaments and luxuries which his father had in- herited from his kingly progenitors, yet when through age he had come to be dependent upon his two sons, Polynikes one day broke through this interdict, and set before him the silver table and the splendid wine-cup of Kadmus, which Laius had always been ac- customed to employ. The old king had no sooner seen these precious appendages of the regal life of his father, than his mind was overrun by a calamitous phrenzy, and he imprecated terrible curses on his sons, predicting that there would be bitter and end- less warfare between them. The goddess Erinnys heard and heeded him ; and he repeated the curse again on another occasion, when his sons, who had always been accustomed to send to him the shoulder of the victims sacrificed on the altar, caused the but- 1 Hesiod, ap. Schol. Iliad, xxiii. 680, which passage does not seem to me so much, at variance with the incidents stated in other poets as Lcntsch imagines. 2 'Apyof aecde, Beu, Trofa'ityiov, evdev uvaKTef (see Leutsch, ib. c. 4. p 29).