Page:History of Greece Vol I.djvu/304

 272 HISTORY OF GREECE. On proposing the expedition to the Argeian chiefs around hint- he found most of them willing auxiliaries ; but Amphiaraus formerly his bitter opponent, but now reconciled to him, and husband of his sister Eriphyle strongly opposed him. 1 He denounced the enterprise as unjust and contrary to the will of the gods. Again, being of a prophetic stock, descended from Melampus, he foretold the certain death both of himself and of the principal leaders, should they involve themselves as accom- plices in the mad violence of Tydeus or the criminal ambition of Polynikes. Amphiaraus, already distinguished both in the Kaly- donian boar-hunt and in the funeral games of Pelias, was in the Theban war the most conspicuous of all the heroes, and absolutely indispensable to its success. But his reluctance to engage in it was invincible, nor was it possible to prevail upon him except through the influence of his wife Eriphyle. Polynikes, having brought with him from Thebes the splendid robe and necklace given by the gods to Harmonia on her marriage with Kadmus, offered it as a bribe to Eriphyle, on condition that she would influence the determination of Amphiaraus. The sordid wife, seduced by so matchless a present, betrayed the lurking-place of her husband, and involved him in the fatal expedition. 2 Amphia- raus, reluctantly dragged forth, and foreknowing the disastrous issue of the expedition both to himself and to his associates, addressed his last injunctions, at the moment of mounting his chariot, to his sons Alkmaeon and Amphilochus, commanding Alkmoeon to avenge his approaching death by killing the venal Eriphyle, and by undertaking a second expedition against Thebes. The Attic dramatists describe this expedition as having been conducted by seven chiefs, one to each of the seven celebrated gates of Thebes. But the Cyclic Thebais gave to it a much up by swineherds (Antimach. Fragm. 27, ed. Diintzer; ap. Schol. Iliad, iv. 400). Very probably, however, the old ThebaTs compared Tydeus and Poly- nikes to a lion and a boar, on account of their courage and fierceness ; a simile quite in the Homeric character. Mnaseas gave the words of the oracle (ip. Schol. Eurip. Phoeniss. 41 1). 1 See Pindar, Nem. ix. 30, with the instructive Scholium 3 Apollodor. iii. 6, 2. The treachery of " the hateful Eriphyle" is noticed in the Odyssey, xi. 327 : Odysseus sees her in the under-world along xith the many wives and daughters of the heroes.