Following the Trojan era that of Thebes is the main source from which ancient tragedy drew its inspiration. The family curse on the royal house of Thebes, is passing trough its third phase where Eteokles and Polynikes, the sons of Oedipus, who had killed his father and married his mother, have the legacy of the curse upon them confirmed when they resort to the sword in order to settle their differences over their inheritance. Polynikes, displeased with his brother, leaves Thebes, assembles an army together with six other leaders, and lays a siege on the city. The high point in the play comes when Eteokles is informed as to which of the leaders of the besieging army has been stationed at each gate and organizes his defense accordingly, placing a warrior of his own of equal stature to combat each one of the attackers. He finds out that his brother is posted at the seven gates and decides to confront him himself. In the course of their duel, they kill each other. The city fathers forbid the burial of Polynikes as a sign of the disgrace to which he has fallen after his attack of his home city. But Antigone, sister of the two dead men, opposes the decision and undertakes to burry Polynikes. In this play of Aeschylus, which is full of war, a family drama is played out as if Eteokles and Polynikes are been driven both by fate and their own volition to kill each other, an act which will lead to the extinction of the last male descendants of their family and which will mark the transition to a new ruling order for Thebes.
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