Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/303

 ADRASTUS OF ARGOS. 271 according to which CEdipus has contracted by his unconscious misdeeds an incurable taint destined to pass onward to his progeny. His mind is alienated, and he curses them, not because he has suffered seriously by their guilt, but because he is made the blind instrument of an avenging Erinnys for the ruin of the house of Laius. 1 After the death of OEdipus and the celebration of his funeral games, at which amongst others, Argeia, daughter of Adrastus (afterwards the wife of Polynikes), was present, 2 his two sons soon quarrelled respecting the succession. The circumstances are differently related ; but it appears that, according to the orig- inal narrative, the wrong and injustice was on the part of Poly- nikes, who, however, was obliged to leave Thebes and to seek shelter with Adrastus, king of Argos. Here he met Tydeus, a fugitive, at the same time, from JEtoiia : it was dark when they arrived, and a broil ensued between the two exiles, but Adrastus came out and parted them. He had been enjoined by an oracle to give his two daughters in marriage to a lion and a boar, and he thought this occasion had now arrived, inasmuch as one of the combatants carried on his shield a lion, the other a boar. He accordingly gave Deipyle in marriage to Tydeus, and Argeia to Polynikes : moreover, he resolved to restore by armed resistance both his sons-in-law to their respective countries. 3 1 The curses of (Edipus arc very frequently and emphatically dwelt upon both by ^Eschylus and Sophokles (Sept. ad Theb. 70-586, 655-697, etc. ; (Edip. Colon. 1293-1378). The former continues the same point of view as the ThebaYs, when he mentions Td? TTSpl-&VfiOVf Karupaf @Aaipi(j>povo<; Oldixoda (727) ; or, "kbjov r' avoia not Apevuv 'Epivvvc (Soph. Antig. 584). The Scholiast on Sophokles ("CEd. Col. 1378) treats the cause assigned by the ancient ThebaYs for the curse vented by CEdipus as trivial and ludicrous. The JEgeids at Sparta, who traced their descent to Kadmus, suffered from terrible maladies which destroyed the lives of their children ; an oracle di- rected them to appease the Erinnyes of Laius and OEdipus by erecting a temple, upon which the maladies speedily ceased (Herodot. iv.). 2 Hesiod. ap. Schol. Iliad, xxiii. 680. 3 Apollodor. iii. 5, 9 ; Hygin. f. 69 ; JSschyl. Sept. ad Theb. 573. Hyginus ays that Polynikes came clothed in the skin of a lion, and Tydeus in that rf a boar ; perhaps after Antimachus, who said that Tydeus had been brought