Leading on from the story of Heracles in last week’s lecture, this session looked at the beginnings of the story of Thebes – it’s a big enough topic that it has 2 lectures devoted to it: this one, which covered the foundation of the city to the death of Oedipus, and one to follow next week, on the Seven against Thebes to the razing of the city by the Epigonoi.
Oddly enough, the character that students seemed to associate most with Thebes was Theseus, rather than Oedipus. But it was easy enough to lead from that into the main discussion by looking at the opposition between Thebes and Athens; the transgressive House of Labdacus and Theseus as the hero who rights their wrongs (apparent also in Euripides’ Heracles, set in Thebes).
What characterises the Theban line seems to be this issue of transgression, from Cadmus’ slaying of the dragon of Ares (for which expiation is demanded in Euripides’ Phoenician Women) to the mutual murder of the sons of Oedipus. Zeitlin’s (1990) theory of Thebes as the ‘other’ space on the Athenian stage is a good lens through which to view this tendency towards transgression, but although the myth has mostly survived in tragedy, this doesn’t fully explain the use of the theme in epic or other genres.
There seems to be a layering of meaning as the myth develops in the Classical period – not least because there may be 2 different traditions at work here (Cadmus as the founder of Thebes/Amphion and Zethos as the builders of its walls). Folkloric elements (Edmunds 1985) come through and are juxtaposed with the function of the topos in the Athenian psyche. Yet trying to narrate the myth makes it seem somehow simplistic – next week, I think I may try some more detailed textual comparison with the class.
Tags: ambiguity, Greek literature, Greek myth, Oedipus, performance, Thebes
