Gods and Heroes of Ancient Greece

by Gustav Schwab

  Creon’s anger was great. He threatened to have all the guards hanged unless they delivered the evildoer into his hands without delay. At his command, they removed the earth from the body and resumed their vigil. From early morning until noon they sat in the hot sun. Then, of a sudden, a storm blew up and filled the air with dust. The guards were still pondering the meaning of this sign, when they saw a girl approach, lamenting softly, like a bird who finds the nest empty. In one hand she carried a bronze pitcher. Quickly she stooped and filled it with dust and then cautiously drew near the body. She did not see the men, who were on a mound at some distance, since the stench of the body, unburied so long, sickened them at closer quarters. When she reached Polynices, she poured dust upon him three times, in lieu of burial. And at that the guards hurried to the spot, seized her, and dragged the doer, caught in the very act, to their king.

  ANTIGONE AND CREON

  Creon instantly saw that it was his niece Antigone. “Foolish girl!” he cried. “Now you stand with bowed head! Will you confess, or do you deny having done what they accuse you of?”

  “I confess!” said the girl and lifted her head proudly.

  “And did you know the orders?” the king continued questioning her. “And knowing them, dared transgress them so boldly?”

  “I knew them,” Antigone answered calmly and firmly. “But those orders did not come from one of the immortal gods. And I know other commands that are not of today nor of yesterday, but hold for all eternity, and none can say from whence they were given. No mortal may transgress these without incurring the wrath of the gods, and it was such a command that forbade me leave the dead son of my mother unburied. If this action of mine seems foolish to you, then he is a fool who accuses me of folly.”

  “And do you think your stubborn spirit cannot be broken?” asked Creon, angered still more by the girl’s defiance. “The most inflexible blade is the first to crack. Whoever is in another’s power ought not to show insolence!”

  “You can do no more than kill me,” Antigone answered. “Why delay? My name will not become inglorious through death. I know, moreover, that only the fear of you is keeping my fellow citizens silent. In their hearts they all approve of what I have done, for a sister’s first and foremost duty is to cherish her brother.”

  Whereupon Creon cried: “Well, then—if cherish him you must—cherish him in Hades!” And he was about to bid the servants seize her, when Ismene, who had heard of her sister’s capture, stormed into the hall. She seemed to have shaken off her weakness and timidity. Bravely she went up to her uncle, declared she had known of the burial, and demanded to die together with Antigone. But she reminded Creon that Antigone was not merely his sister’s daughter, but the betrothed of his own son Haemon as well, so that by killing her he was depriving the heir to the throne of marriage with the one he loved. Creon did not deign to answer but had his servants take both the sisters to the inner chambers of the palace.

  HAEMON AND ANTIGONE

  When Creon saw his son hurrying toward him, he was certain that he had heard of the judgment passed on Antigone, and had come to rebel against his father. But with filial obedience Haemon replied to his wary questions, and only after he had convinced his father of his devotion did he venture to ask mercy for his beloved. “You do not know what the people are saying, father,” he said. “You do not hear them demur, because your imperious eyes keep them from saying to your face anything that is unwelcome to your ears. But I know what is going on! And I can tell you that the whole city is bewailing the fate of Antigone, that every citizen considers her action worthy of eternal glory, that no one believes that a sister who refuses to let dogs gnaw her brother’s bones or birds hack at his flesh is deserving of death. And so, dear father, yield to the voice of the people! Do as the trees along the swollen forest stream; they bend to the force of waters and stand unharmed, but those which resist are uprooted by the current.”

  “Does this boy propose to teach me?” Creon said contemptuously. “It seems you are fighting on the side of a woman.”

  “Yes, if you are a woman!” the boy countered swiftly and eagerly. “For I said all I did only to help you.”

  “I can well see,” his father replied indignantly, “that blind love for an evildoer holds your spirit in bondage. But you shall not woo her alive. For this is my resolve: far away, where no man passes, she shall be imprisoned in a rock grave, and only so much food will be given her as is necessary to save the city from the taint outright murder might bring it. There she may plead for freedom with the gods of the underworld. She will learn too late that it is wiser to obey the living than the dead.” And Creon turned from his son and ordered everything prepared to carry out his verdict. Publicly, before all the people of Thebes, Antigone was conducted to the tomb destined for her. Unafraid, and calling upon the immortals and her loved ones with whom she hoped to be reunited, she entered the cave which was to be her grave.

  In the meantime the body of Polynices, falling into decay, still lay unburied, and the dogs and birds fed on him and fouled the city by carrying to this place and that the shreds of his rotting flesh. Then Tiresias, the aged soothsayer, who had once sought out King Oedipus, appeared before Creon and from the smoke of sacrifice and the voices of birds prophesied disaster. He had heard the croak of evil hungry throats, and the victim on the altar had charred in acrid smoke. “It is clear that the gods are angry with us,” he ended. “Angry because of the treatment given the slain son of Oedipus. And so, O king, do not hold to your command. Yield to the dead and desist from murder. What glory is there in slaying the slain? Leave off, I say! I counsel you for your own good!”

  But just as Oedipus once had done, so Creon now rejected the advice of the seer, accusing him of lies and greed for money. At that the old man smouldered with rage and mercilessly snatched the veil from the future before the very eyes of the king. “Know then,” he solemnly said, “that the sun will not set until you, from your own blood, give one body for two that are dead. You are committing a twofold crime, by withholding from the underworld its due, and by keeping from the upper world the living who should dwell in the light of day. Quick, boy, lead me away from here. Let us give this man up to the fate in store for him.” Leaning on his staff, he left at the hand of his guide.

  CREON’S PUNISHMENT

  The king followed the sullen seer with his gaze, and he trembled. He called together the city elders and took counsel with them as to what was to be done. “Release Antigone from her rock grave and bury the body of Polynices,” they decided unanimously. It was not easy for Creon to bend his stubborn spirit to consent, but the heart had gone out of him. He agreed to do as Tiresias had said, since this seemed the only way to avert destruction from his house. First he himself, in the van of his retinue, went to the field where Polynices lay, and then to the tomb in which Antigone was kept imprisoned. His wife Eurydice remained behind in the palace alone.

  Soon she heard the sound of lament rising from the streets, and as the clamor grew louder and louder, she left her chamber and went into the forecourt. There she found a messenger, the very man who had guided her husband to the spot where the mangled body of his nephew lay exposed. “We prayed to the gods of the underworld,” he said. “When the dead body had been washed in the sacred bath, we burned those pitiful remains and heaped a burial mound out of clods of his native earth. Then we went to the stone vault the girl had entered to suffer the death of starvation. A servant who had gone before heard from afar cries of agony and grief coming from that terrible place. He hurried back to tell his king of the voice which issued from the tomb, but Creon already knew, though hearing it but dimly, that it was that of his son. He bade us run and peer through a crack in the stone. And what did we see? In the back of the cave hung Antigone, strangled in a noose she had knotted of her veil, and at her feet, clasping her knees, lay your son Haemon, mourning his beloved and cursing the father who had robbed him of his bride. And now Creon reached the rock grave and entered through
the opening. ‘Unhappy boy,’ he called to Haemon, ‘what is your purpose? What does the madness of your gaze forebode? Come to me! On my knees I beseech you!’ But the son only stared at him numb with despair. He gave no answer at all but snatched his two-edged sword from the scabbard. His father escaped the thrust by darting from the cave. And then Haemon leaned on the point and let it drive through his side. As he fell he threw his arm around Antigone, drawing her close, and now, in their last embrace, they both lie dead in the tomb!”

  Eurydice listened in silence. He had ended, but still she was speechless. Then she hastened from the room. When the king returned to the palace, accompanied by his servants carrying his only son on a bier, he was told that Eurydice had stabbed herself with a sword and was lying within, in a pool of her own blood.

  THE BURIAL OF THE HEROES OF THEBES

  Of the family of Oedipus only two sons of the fallen brothers remained, and Ismene, Antigone’s sister. Legend is silent concerning her. She died childless, unwed, and her death closed the tale of that unblest family. Of the seven heroes who had gone forth against Thebes, only Adrastus escaped the assault and slaughter of that last encounter. His immortal horse Arion, begotten by Demeter and Poseidon, bore him away in winged flight. He reached Athens safely and there took refuge in the sanctuary of a temple, holding to the altar as a suppliant. Stretching out a twig of olive, he begged the Athenians to help him obtain honorable burial for the men who had fallen before the walls of Thebes. The people of Athens granted his plea and accompanied him back to this city under the leadership of Theseus. And so the Thebans were forced to consent to the burial. For the bodies of the fallen heroes, Adrastus heaped seven pyres and held funeral games near the river Asopus in honor of Apollo. When the pyre of Capaneus burst into flame, Evadne, his wife, daughter of Iphis, threw herself into the fire. The body of Amphiaraus, whom the earth had swallowed up, could not be found, and the king sorrowed because he could not do honor to his friend. “I miss the eye of my army,” he said. “I miss him who was both the greatest seer and the most valiant fighter in battle.”

  When the burial rites had been performed, Adrastus had a beautiful temple erected before the walls of Thebes and dedicated it to Nemesis, or Retribution. Then, with his allies from Athens, he left the country.

  THE EPIGONI

  TEN years later, the sons of the heroes who had fallen in the war against Thebes resolved on a fresh campaign to avenge the death of their fathers. There were eight descendants, and they were called Epigoni: Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, sons of Amphiaraus; Aegialeus, son of Adrastus; Diomedes, son of Tydeus; Promachus, son of Parthenopaeus; Sthenelus, son of Capaneus; Thersander, son of Polynices, and Euryalus, son of Mecisteus. The aged king, Adrastus, sole survivor of that first host which had fought against Thebes, joined the expedition but would not assume command, for he wanted one who was young and strong to hold so important a post. So the sons of the heroes asked the oracle of Apollo whom to choose for their leader. The answer was that it should be Alcmaeon, son of Amphiaraus. But when they offered him the command, he was uncertain whether to accept this honor before avenging his father. He too asked the oracle what his course should be, and the god answered that he was to do both.

  Up to this time his mother Eriphyle had not only kept the necklace destined to bring calamity upon its owner but had also managed to lay hold of the veil, the second gift of Aphrodite. Thersander, son of Polynices, who fell heir to this veil, had given it to her for the same reason his father had once bestowed the necklace: as a bribe, for he wanted her to persuade her son Alcmaeon to take part in the campaign against Thebes. In obedience to the oracle, Alcmaeon assumed command and postponed his act of vengeance until his return. He headed a considerable host, for not only had he assembled the men of Argos; many warriors who craved a chance to show their daring joined him, and so it was a great army which advanced to the gates of Thebes. And here the sons renewed the stubborn siege their fathers had fought ten years before. But the new generation were more favored by fortune, and Alcmaeon won a decisive victory. Only one of the Epigoni fell in battle: Aegialeus, son of King Adrastus, for Laodamas, son of Eteocles, slew him with his own hand, but was killed by Alcmaeon, commander of the Epigoni. When the Thebans had thus lost their leader and many of their men besides, they left the battlefield and took refuge behind their walls. There they consulted Tiresias, the blind seer, who was still alive, although he was over a hundred years old. He advised them to take the only way still open to them: to leave the city, while they sent a herald bearing offers of peace to the Argives. They acted on his words, dispatched a herald to their enemies, and while he was negotiating with them, loaded their women and children on wagons and fled from Thebes. In the darkness of night they came to Tilphusium, a city in Boeotia. Blind Tiresias, who had shared their flight, took a deep draught from a cold spring flowing outside the city and died. But even in the underworld the wise soothsayer kept aloof from the rest for not like the other shades did he rove about aimlessly with blank and idle mind. He retained the power of thinking great thoughts and of seeing beyond what is given mortals to know. His daughter Manto had not gone with him. She stayed behind and fell into the hands of the conquerors who occupied the abandoned city of Thebes. But these had made a vow to dedicate to Apollo the best of what they found in the city, and they now decided that no spoils could be more welcome to the god than Manto, who had inherited the divine gift of her father. And so the Epigoni took her to Delphi and consecrated her as a priestess of the sun-god. Here she grew more and more perfect in the art of soothsaying, her wisdom deepened, and she became the most noted seeress of her time. People often saw an old man come and go in the temple where she presided. She taught him verses full of vigor and sweetness and glory, which soon resounded through all the land of Greece. He was a singer from Maeonia—Homer.

  ALCMAEON AND THE NECKLACE

  WHEN Alcmaeon returned from Thebes, he decided to fulfill the second part of the oracle, the bidding to avenge his father. His bitterness toward his mother increased when he discovered that she had accepted bribes not only to betray her husband, but to play her son false as well. He overrode his scruples and slew her with his sword. Then he took the necklace and the veil and left the house of his parents, for which he had come to feel nothing but loathing. Now though the oracle had bidden him avenge his father, the murder of his mother was against the laws of nature, and so the gods could not allow it to go unpunished. They sent the Furies to pursue him, and afflicted him with madness. Bereaved of his senses he came to King Oicleus in Arcadia, but the goddesses of vengeance left him no peace, and he was forced to continue his wanderings. At last he found a refuge in another city of Arcadia, in Psophis, where Phegeus was king. He purified Alcmaeon and gave him his daughter Arsinoë in marriage, and now it was she who became the possessor of the fatal necklace and veil. Alcmaeon had been healed of his madness, but all the curse was not taken from him, for the land which had received him grew barren because of his presence. He questioned an oracle but was given small comfort: he would find peace when he came to a country which had not been on the face of the earth at the time he had killed his mother. Without hope, Alcmaeon left his wife and his little son Clytius and set out into the wide world. After long wanderings he found what the oracle had predicted. Coming to the river Achelous, he discovered an island which had emerged from the waters only a short time since. On this he settled, and the curse dropped from him.

  But his release and his happiness only served to make him insolent and overbearing. He forgot Arsinoë and his small son and married lovely Callirrhoë, daughter of the river-god Achelous, and by her had two sons, Acarnan and Amphoterus. Now since rumor had spread the tale of the priceless treasures Alcmaeon carried with him, his wife soon asked to see the shimmering necklace and the filmy veil. But these Alcmaeon had left with his first wife when he went from her in secret. He did not wish Callirrhoë to know of this former marriage, and so he invented some faraway place where he claimed to have stored
his treasures, and offered to fetch them. In this way he returned to Psophis and his first wife, and in excuse for his long absence told her and her father that a residue of madness had driven him from them, and was still not wholly dispelled. “There is only one way to rid me utterly of this curse,” he said craftily. “I have been told that if I take the necklace and veil I once gave you to Delphi, as a votive offering, all will be well at last.” And Phegeus and his daughter believed his deceitful words and gave him what he asked. With a glad heart Alcmaeon left with his loot, not dreaming that those treasures were bound to bring destruction upon him as they had upon others. But one of his servants, who knew his secret, told King Phegeus of his second wife and that he had taken the necklace and veil only to bring them to her. And now the brothers of deserted Arsinoë followed in his tracks, lurked for him in ambush, and slew him as he went his way unsuspectingly. They took the treasures from him and brought them back to their sister, boasting that they had avenged her. But Arsinoë loved Alcmaeon, even when she learned of his perfidy, and cursed her brothers for having killed him. And now the fatal gifts were to prove their strength upon Arsinoë herself. Her resentful brothers thought no punishment too harsh for their sister’s ingratitude. They seized her, locked her in a chest, bore her away to Tegea, to King Agapenor, to whom they were bound by ties of hospitality, and accused her of having murdered Alcmaeon. And so she died a most wretched death.