Aegyptus sought to unite
his fifty sons in marriage with the fifty daughters of the brother. The
daughters fled with their father to Argos. Here his play opens. The
Chorus appeal for protection to the country, once the home of Io, and to
its gods and heroes. Pelasgus, with the consent of the Argive people,
grants them refuge, and at the end of the play repels the attempt to
seize them made by the Herald of the sons of Aegyptus.

A part of one of the choruses is of singular beauty, and it is doubtless
to them that the preservation of the play is due. The play hardly seems
to be a tragedy, for it ends without bloodshed. Further, it lacks
dramatic interest, for the action almost stands still. It is a cantata
rather than a tragedy. Both considerations, however, are sufficiently
explained by the fact that this was the first play of a trilogy. The
remaining plays must have furnished, in the death of forty-nine of the
sons of Aegyptus, both action and tragedy in sufficient measure to
satisfy the most exacting demands.

The 'Seven Against Thebes' deals with the gloomy myth of the house of
Laius. The tetralogy to which it belonged consisted of the 'Laius,'
'Oedipus,' 'Seven Against Thebes,' and 'Sphinx.' The themes of Greek
tragedy were drawn from the national mythology, but the myths were
treated with a free hand. In his portrayal of the fortunes of this
doomed race, Aeschylus departed in important particulars, with gain in
dramatic effect, from the story as it is read in Homer.

Oedipus had pronounced an awful curse upon his sons, Eteocles and
Polynices, for their unfilial neglect,--"they should one day divide
their land by steel." They thereupon agreed to reign in turn, each for a
year; but Eteocles, the elder, refused at the end of the first year to
give up the throne. Polynices appealed to Adrastus King of Argos for
help, and seven chiefs appeared before the walls of Thebes to enforce
his claim, and beleaguered the town. Here the play opens, with an appeal
addressed by Eteocles to the citizens of Thebes to prove themselves
stout defenders of their State in its hour of peril. A messenger enters,
and describes the sacrifice and oath of the seven chiefs. The Chorus of
Theban maidens enter in confusion and sing the first ode. The hostile
army is hurrying from its camp against the town; the Chorus hear their
shouts and the rattling din of their arms, and are overcome by terror.
Eteocles reproves them for their fears, and bids