Skip to main content

Thebes

thebes
Thebes is a city in the region of Boeotia in Greece, which provided the setting for various myths and stories. Cadmus, a Phoenician king, was the mythical founder of the city; the myth has it that after getting advice from the Oracle of Delphi, he had to follow a cow and build a city wherever the animal would stop. After it stopped, Cadmus decided to sacrifice it to the gods and asked his men to get some water from a nearby spring, which was guarded by a dragon. The dragon killed most of his men, before it was slain by Cadmus. Advised by Athena, Cadmus sew half of the dragon's teeth, and armed soldiers sprang out of the ground, the Spartoi. Cadmus threw a stone among them, who confused about who had done it, started fighting each other. Only five survived, who helped Cadmus build Thebes.
However, one of the most prominent sagas of Greek mythology that took place in Thebes was the story of Laius, and everything that resulted from his deeds. Although he was the rightful heir to the throne, it was usurped by Amphion and Zethus. Laius found refuge in the court of Pisa in the Pelopponese, where King Pelops warmly welcomed him. He then raped and abducted Pelops' son, Chrissipus, and went back to Thebes, where he was restored to the throne. Later, he married Jocasta, but he received an oracle that he should not have a child or the child would kill him and marry his wife. However, one night he was so drunk that he slept with Jocasta and impregnated her with Oedipus. The story of Oedipus also takes place in the city of Thebes.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gorgon

In Greek mythology, a Gorgon  is a mythical creature portrayed in ancient Greek literature. While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature and occur in the earliest examples of Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair made of living, venomous snakes, as well as a horrifying visage that turned those who beheld her to stone. Traditionally, while two of the Gorgons were immortal, Stheno and Euryale, their sister Medusa was not and she was slain by the demigod and hero Perseus. The large Gorgon eyes, as well as Athena 's "flashing" eyes, are symbols termed "the divine eyes" by Gimbutas (who did not originate the perception); they appear also in Athena's sacred bird, the owl. They may be represented by spirals, wheels, concentric circles, swastikas, firewheels, and other images. Anyone who would gaze into their eyes would be turned to stone instantly. Essential Reads: Engaging Books You Can't Miss...
Post a Comment
Read more

Paris And Helen

WHEN Helen, Leda’s beautiful daughter, grew to womanhood at Sparta in the palace of her foster-father Tyndareus, all the princes of Greece came with rich gifts as her suitors, or sent their kinsmen to represent them. Diomedes, fresh from his victory at Thebes, was there with Ajax, Teucer, Philoctetes, Idomeneus, Patroclus, Menestheus, and many others. Odysseus came too, but empty-handed, because he had not the least chance of success-for, even though the Dioscuri, Helen’s brothers, wanted her to marry Menestheus of Athens, she would, Odysseus knew, be given to Prince Menelaus, the richest of the Achaeans, represented by Tyndareus’s powerful son-in-law Agamemnon. b. Tyndareus sent no suitor away, but would, on the other hand, accept none of the proffered gifts; fearing that his partiality for any one prince might set the others quarrelling. Odysseus asked him one day: ‘If I tell you how to avoid a quarrel will you, in return, help me to marry Icarius’s daughter Penelope?’ ‘It...
Post a Comment
Read more

Merope - Pleiades

Merope is one of the seven Pleiades, daughters of Atlas and Pleione . Pleione, their mother, is the daughter of Oceanus and Tethys and is the protector of sailors. Merope is the faintest of the stars because she was the only of the Pleiades to have married a mortal. Her sisters had relations with gods and bore them sons, but Merope married Sisyphus and lived on the island Chios. Merope gave birth to Glaukos, Ornytion, Almus, Thersander and Sinon. The star Merope is often called the "lost Pleiad" because she was at first not seen by astronomers or charted like her sisters. One myth says that she hid her face in shame because she had an affair with a mortal man, another says she went to Hades with her husband, Sisyphus . They were the sisters of Calypso, Hyas, the Hyades , and the Hesperides. The Pleiades were nymphs in the train of Artemis , and together with the seven Hyades were called the Atlantides, Dodonides, or Nysiades, nursemaids and teachers to the infant Di...
Post a Comment
Read more