1000 Classical Characters Briefly Described

Who was Iphigenia? What did Cincinnatus do? A thousand gods, heroes and tyrants of the classical world, each explained in the time it takes to read a text message.

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Adrastus

Son of Talaus and Lysimache, was king of Argos. He received Polynices, when the latter had been expelled from his native Thebes by his brother Eteocles, and gave him his daughter Argia in marriage. He then collected an army, with the assistance of six other heroes-Polynices, Tydeus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Hippomedon, and Parthenopaeus-and marched against Thebes, in order to drive out Eteocles, and restore the kingdom to Polynices. The expedition, however, ended as disastrously as Amphiaraus had predicted, and all the heroes were killed, except Adrastus, who escaped through the swiftness of his horse, Arion. This expedition was made the subject of a drama, by Aeschylus, "The Seven against Thebes."

Ten years later Adrastus induced the six sons of the heroes who had fallen in the war to make a new attack upon Thebes. This war was known as the war of the Epigonois. It was entirely successful, and Thebes was taken and razed to the ground. Aegialeus, the son of Adrastus, was killed in this war, and Adrastus is said to have died of a broken heart, on his return to

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