The ''Epigoni'' (, ''Epigonoi'', "progeny") is an ancient Greek tragedy written by the

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

playwright

Sophocles Sophocles ( 497/496 – winter 406/405 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. was an ancient Greek tragedian known as one of three from whom at least two plays have survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or contemporary with, those ...

in the 5th century BC and based on

Greek mythology Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...

. According to myth,

Polynices In Greek mythology, Polynices (also Polyneices) (; ) was the son of Oedipus and either Jocasta or Euryganeia and the older brother of Eteocles. When Oedipus was discovered to have killed his father and married his mother, Oedipus was expelled ...

and the

Seven against Thebes ''Seven Against Thebes'' (, ''Hepta epi Thēbas''; ) is the third play in an Oedipus-themed trilogy produced by Aeschylus in 467 BC. The trilogy is sometimes referred to as the ''Oedipodea''. It concerns the battle between an Argive army, led by ...

attacked Thebes because Polynices' brother,

Eteocles In Greek mythology, Eteocles (; ) was a king of Ancient Thebes (Boeotia), Thebes, the son of Oedipus and either Jocasta or Euryganeia. Oedipus killed his father Laius and married his mother without knowing his relationship to either. When the ...

, refused to give up the throne as promised. All but one (

Adrastus In Greek mythology, Adrastus or Adrestus (Ancient Greek: Ἄδραστος or Ἄδρηστος), (perhaps meaning "the inescapable"), was a king of Argos, and leader of the Seven against Thebes. He was the son of the Argive king Talaus, but w ...

) of the seven would-be conquerors were killed. Their children swore vengeance and attacked Thebes. This was called the war of the Epigonoi ("the offspring, the next generation"); the story had been told, before Sophocles, in the lost

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

'' Epigonoi''. These Epigonoi defeated and killed (or drove out) Laodamas, son of Eteocles, and conquered Thebes, installing Thersander on the throne. All of the Epigonoi but Aegialeus, the son of

, or else Alcmaeon, son of

Amphiaraus Amphiaraus or Amphiaraos (; Ancient Greek: Ἀμφιάραος, Ἀμφιάρεως, "very sacred") was in Greek mythology the son of Oicles, a seer, and one of the leaders of the Seven against Thebes. Amphiaraus at first refused to go with Adr ...

, survived this battle.

knew that the attack against Thebes was doomed to fail and that he did not want to partake, but he was coerced to do so by his wife Eriphyle, who had been bribed by Polynices. Amphiaraus had instructed his son Alcmaeon to avenge him against his mother, and Alcmaeon killed her, either before or after the war of the Epigonoi, depending on the version of the myth. Alcmaeon was then pursued by the

Erinyes The Erinyes ( ; , ), also known as the Eumenides (, the "Gracious ones"), are chthonic goddesses of vengeance in ancient Greek religion and mythology. A formulaic oath in the ''Iliad'' invokes them as "the Erinyes, that under earth tak ...

, similar to Orestes' fate after killing his mother

Clytemnestra Clytemnestra (, ; , ), in Greek mythology, was the wife of Agamemnon, king of Mycenae, and the half-sister of Helen of Sparta. In Aeschylus' ''Oresteia'', she murders Agamemnon – said by Euripides to be her second husband – and the Trojan p ...

. The play was lost for centuries, except for a few fragments, but in April 2005,

classicist Classics, also classical studies or Ancient Greek and Roman studies, is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, ''classics'' traditionally refers to the study of Ancient Greek literature, Ancient Greek and Roman literature and ...

s at

Oxford University The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the second-oldest continuously operating u ...

, employing

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

technology previously used for

satellite A satellite or an artificial satellite is an object, typically a spacecraft, placed into orbit around a celestial body. They have a variety of uses, including communication relay, weather forecasting, navigation ( GPS), broadcasting, scient ...

imaging, discovered additional fragments of it in the

Oxyrhynchus Papyri The Oxyrhynchus Papyri are a group of manuscripts discovered during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by papyrology, papyrologists Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt at an ancient Landfill, rubbish dump near Oxyrhync ...

. The fragment translates to the following: :''Speaker A: … gobbling the whole, sharpening the flashing iron.'' :''Speaker B: And the helmets are shaking their purple-dyed crests, and for the wearers of breast-plates the weavers are striking up the wise shuttle's songs, that wake up those who are asleep.'' :''Speaker A: And he is gluing together the chariot's rail.'' Several fragments had been definitively assigned to ''Epigoni'' prior to this find. One was translated by

Hugh Lloyd-Jones Sir Peter Hugh Jefferd Lloyd-Jones (21 September 1922 – 5 October 2009)

as "Most calamitous of sons, what a word have you uttered." This was apparently stated by Eriphyle to Alcmaeon shortly before he killed her. Another fragment has a similar theme: "O woman whose shamelessness has stopped at nothing and has gone yet further, no other evil is or ever will be worse than a woman who was born to give pain to mortals." Another fragment presents an exchange between Alcmaeon and Adrastus, Eriphyle's brother and thus Alcmaeon's uncle. In this exchange Alcmaeon remarks that Adrastus "is the brother of a woman who killed her husband." Adrastus retorts by accusing Alcmaeon of murdering "the mother who gave imbirth." A remark in

Philodemus Philodemus of Gadara (, ''Philodēmos'', "love of the people"; – prob. or 35 BC) was an Epicurean philosopher and poet. He studied under Zeno of Sidon in Athens, before moving to Rome, and then to Herculaneum. He was once known chiefly for h ...

' book about music leads scholars to believe that the dispute between Alcmaeon and Adrastus was somehow resolved through the power of music. Another fragment posits the view that "for victims of envy find that ill repute wins out over shameful rather than over honorable actions." An additional fragment notes that someone (unnamed in the fragment) will no longer live in Argos. In addition to the fragments assigned to ''Epigoni'', there are seven extant fragments assigned to a play by Sophocles entitled ''Eriphyle''. Many scholars believe that ''Eriphyle'' is just an alternate title for ''Epigoni'', in which case these seven fragments would apply to ''Epigoni''. These fragments include such advice as (again as translated by Lloyd-Jones) "Maintain restraint in speech, as is proper to old age," and "The only possessions that are permanent are those of excellence." However, it is possible that ''Eriphyle'' is a separate play from ''Epigoni'', in which case it is possible that both were part of a connected trilogy, with the other tragic play in the trilogy being ''Alcmaeon'' and the

satyr play The satyr play is a form of Attic theatre performance related to both comedy and tragedy. It preserves theatrical elements of dialogue, actors speaking verse, a chorus that dances and sings, masks and costumes. Its relationship to tragedy is st ...

being ''

''. There are other fragments that may belong to ''Epigoni,'' but these are uncertain. For example, a one sentence fragment of Sophocles (fragment 958) telling of the death of

– that the ground of Thebes opened up to receive him and his arms and his horses and chariot – has been variously assigned to ''Epigoni'', ''Eriphyle'', ''Alcmaeon'' or to ''Amphiaraus''. An expert on Sophocles, Akiko Kiso was the first Japanese scholar to publish his works. In 1984, Kiso published ''The Lost Sophocles'', which reconsidered fragments of Sophocles' lost works. It included reconstructions of ''Epigoni'' and '' Tereus.''

References

{{Authority control Plays by Sophocles Seven against Thebes Lost plays Plays based on classical mythology