How The Seven Against Thebes drew on The Iliad
A documented line of influence: Aeschylus demonstrably engaged Homer’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
The Iliad
Homer · c. 750 BCE
Ancient GreeceThe influenced
The Seven Against Thebes
Aeschylus · 467 BCE
Ancient GreeceRelevance
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On The Seven Against Thebes’s page
- The Theban war this play stages was already a memory inside the Iliad — Agamemnon recounts Tydeus's exploits at 4.372-400, and ruined Thebes lingers in Homer's Catalogue of Ships
- Aeschylus drew his scout's description of Tydeus from those Homeric verses; the Iliad behind you shows where this tragedy quarried its heroes
On The Iliad’s page
- Homer left a second war buried inside the Iliad — the assault on Thebes, recalled in Agamemnon's account of Tydeus at 4.372-400, with ruined Hypothebai surviving in the Catalogue of Ships
- Aeschylus took that embedded Theban material and built a tragedy around it, drawing his scout's portrait of Tydeus straight from Homer's lines