Hearken—we come but for the corpses’ sake,
To bury them and keep all Hellas’ law
Inviolate.
The problem of the burial of Polyneices has two distinct aspects in Euripides, as it has in Sophocles. In both accounts Polyneices was ultimately buried, as it was necessary for legend to insist that he should be, in view of the existence of tombs in Thebes which were said to contain the bones of all the seven Argive leaders.[174] But whereas in Sophocles it is religious fear which causes Kreon to consent to the burial of Polyneices, in Euripides we feel that it is rather the victorious intervention of Theseus which is the cause of this dénouement. Eteocles and Polyneices are represented by Euripides as having foreseen the conflict which would rage over their burial when they had mutually slain each other. Thus, Eteocles solemnly binds Kreon to refuse burial to Polyneices[175]:
But I, on the city
And thee, O Kreon, this injunction lay:
If I prove stronger, suffer not the corse
Of Polyneices in this Theban realm
To be interred: let death be the reward
Of him who scatters dust o’er his remains,