Aeschylus
Monarch Notes
01-01-1963
Seven Against Thebes (467 B.C.)

Background:

Aeschylus won first prize for his Theban tetralogy, which included Laius,
oedipus, Seven Against Thebes, and The Sphinx, a satyr-play. Of these, only
Seven Against Thebes has survived. The play is rather static, simple in
structure, and bombastic in many places.

Themes:

The theme that was probably basic to the whole trilogy, of which this
play was the concluding one, no doubt was that the sins of the fathers are
visited upon the sons, for the trilogy presented the downfall of Laius and his
descendants. The theme and story, therefore, parallel those of the Oresteia.
The second part of Seven Against Thebes is ...