Abstract

Seven Against Thebes, one of Aeschylus’ less well-studied plays, depicts the civil war of Oedipus’ two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices. Rather than develop the plot of the play through personal interactions of the seven pairs of heroes, Aeschylus instead chooses to depict the siege of the city entirely through conversations that Eteocles has with the women of Thebes and with a messenger who is the only character to see outside the walls of the city. Aeschylus constructs his play in such a private manner in order to push the focus of the play inwards onto the character of Eteocles. Through a close reading of several passages this paper attempts to establish that throughout the play Eteocles’ primary motivation is a drive for silence—a position not fully discussed among scholars. In addition, this paper also closely examines the character of Eteocles as well as the changes Eteocles undergoes through the course of the play and what those changes imply about how one reads the play as a whole. Although many scholars have attempted to define the character of Eteocles, their inquiries have not focused deeply enough on how Aeschylus specifically characterizes Eteocles in the Seven, nor have they adequately assessed the relationship between the episode where Eteocles first confronts the Chorus and the episode where Eteocles’ confronts the messenger and, and subsequently, how those parallel episodes affect Eteocles. A reading on this level of depth magnifies Aeschylus’ skill as a writer and changes the way in which the Seven is read in general.