or, λόγου τ᾽ ἄνοια καὶ φρενῶν Ἐριννύς (Soph. Antig. 584).
The Scholiast on Sophoklês (Œd. Col. 1378) treats the cause assigned by the ancient Thêbaïs for the curse vented by Œdipus as trivial and ludicrous.
The Ægeids at Sparta, who traced their descent to Kadmus, suffered from terrible maladies which destroyed the lives of their children; an oracle directed them to appease the Erinnyes of Laius and Œdipus by erecting a temple, upon which the maladies speedily ceased (Herodot. iv.).
[644] Hesiod. ap. Schol. Iliad. xxiii. 680.
[645] Apollodôr. iii. 5, 9; Hygin. f. 69; Æschyl. Sept. ad Theb. 573. Hyginus says that Polynikês came clothed in the skin of a lion, and Tydeus in that of a boar; perhaps after Antimachus, who said that Tydeus had been brought up by swineherds (Antimach. Fragm. 27, ed. Düntzer; ap. Schol. Iliad. iv. 400). Very probably, however, the old Thêbaïs compared Tydeus and Polynikês 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 (ap. Schol. Eurip. Phœniss. 411).
[646] See Pindar, Nem. ix. 30, with the instructive Scholium.
[647] Apollodôr. iii. 6, 2. The treachery of “the hateful Eriphylê” is noticed in the Odyssey, xi. 327: Odysseus sees her in the under-world along with the many wives and daughters of the heroes.
[648] Pausan. ii. 20, 4; ix. 9, 1. His testimony to this, as he had read and admired the Cyclic Thêbaïs, seems quite sufficient, in spite of the opinion of Welcker to the contrary (Æschylische Trilogie. p. 375).
[649] Iliad, iv. 376.
[650] There are differences in respect to the names of the seven: Æschylus (Sept. ad Theb. 461) leaves out Adrastus as one of the seven, and includes Eteoklus instead of him; others left out Tydeus and Polynikês, and inserted Eteoklus and Mekisteus (Apollodôr. iii. 6, 3). Antimachus, in his poetical Thêbaïs, called Parthenopæus an Argeian, not an Arcadian (Schol. ad Æschyl. Sept. ad. Theb. 532).