Tragedy's Workshop

It is fitting that having started out these lectures at Eleusis where Persephone was kidnapped, we return to that ancient religious center to end it. But this time we don’t go there to attend the Mysteries. We are taken there by Euripides to see to it that the last of the dead from the ill-fated attack on Thebes get buried. The man who accomplishes this task is Theseus, the king of Athens who has come and gone throughout the tragedies we’ve read, his most important task heretofore being that of the sole witness to the death of Oedipus.

Euripides: The Suppliants

But what happened after all the dead are finally buried? Does the story end there? And the answer is no, it doesn’t. At the end of The Suppliant Women, the sons of the seven dead generals are brought on stage and told that they are to avenge the death of their fathers by once again attacking Thebes. The sons are called the “Epigoni”, the “after-born”. We don’t have a surviving tragedy where the sons perform this duty, but we do know the result from the myths that come down to us from Apollodorus. The sons returned to succeed at the task failed at by their fathers. They burned Thebes.

Apollodorus:

Ten years later the sons of those who had died, who were called Epigoni, undertook an expedition against Thebes to avenge their fathers’ deaths. When they consulted the oracle, the god prophesied victory if Alcmaeon commanded the army. … They chose Alcmaeon to lead them and made war on Thebes. The members of the expediton were: Alcmaeon and Amphilochus, sons of Amphiaraus; Aegialeus, son of Adrastus; Dionmedes, son of Tydeus; Promachus, son of Pathenopaeus; Sthenelus, son of Capaneus; Thersander, son of Polyneices; and Euryalus, son of Mecisteus.

First they destroyed the neighboring villages. They were then attacked by the Thebans under the command of Laodamus, the son of Eteocles, and fought bravely. Laodamas killed Aegialeus and Alcmaeon, Laodamas. After his death the Thebans withdrew inside the walls. On the advice of Teiresias they sent a herald to the Argives to negotiate a truce and then, putting their wives and children into wagons, fled from the city. They arrived by night at the spring called Tilphussa. After drinking from it Teiresias died. ...

The Argives, learning later of the flight of the Thebans, entered the city, looted it, and pulled down the walls. They sent part of the booty, along with Teiresias’ daughter Manto, to Apollo at Delphi, for they had vowed that if they captured Thebes they would dedicate to him the finest of the spoils.

Why Teiresias escaped without his daughter is not known. But Manto was taken to Delphi and served as priestess, Pythia, there for many years until she was ordered by Apollo to found a colony in Asia. Diodorus Siculus, a 1st century AD Greek historian, also provides a little more information about Manto at Delphi:

This maiden possessed no less knowledge of prophecy than her father, and in the course of her stay at Delphi she developed her skill to a far greater degree; moreover, by virtue of the employment of a marvellous natural gift, she also wrote oracular responses of every sort, excelling in their composition; and indeed it was from her poetry, they say, that the poet Homer took many verses which he appropriated as his own and with them adorned his own poesy. And since she was often like one inspired when she delivered oracles, they say that she was also called Sibylla, for to be inspired in one’s tongue is express by the word sibyllainein.

The last bit of her story comes from Pausanias:

… when Polyneices’ son Thersander and the Argives captured Thebes, Manto was brought with the other prisonsers to Apollo at Delphi, though her father Teiresias met his fate on the journey at Haliartia. The god sent them out to found a colony, so they crossed over by ship to Asia, and when they reached Klaros the Cretans [who had settled there] came out against them under arms and brought them before Rakios [their king]. Rakios found out from Manto who they were and why they had come, and took her for his wife, accepting her people as citizens of the colony. It was Mopsos the son of Rakios and Manto who completely expelled the Carians from the country. [They] swore a treaty of union with the Greeks of Colophon and lived on equal terms with them….

But the story of her son continues at Colophon because of a contest between Mopsus and another great seer, Calchas who was with the Greek forces at Troy. Following the siege of Troy, Calchas realized those who returned home would not fare well and chose himself to drift along the coast of Asia to Colophon. Apollodorus tells of his conflict with Mopsus:

Amphilochus, Calchas, Leonteus, Podalirius, and Polypoetes left their ships at Ilium [Troy] and traveled by land to Colophon. There they buried Calchas the seer. For it had been foretold that he would die if he met a seer wiser than himself. They were guests of Mopsus, son of Apollo and Manto, who engaged in a contest with Calchas in the art of divination. When Calchas asked him how many figs were growing on a wild fig tree nearby, Mopsus answered, “Ten thousand and a bushel and one fig over,” and the answer turned out to be correct. Mopsus then asked Calchas how many pigs a pregnant sow was carrying in her womb and when was she due to give birth to them. When Calchas answered eight, Mopsus smiled and said, “Calchas, you fall short of true prophecy but I, who am the son of Apollo and Manto, have a wealth of keen vision. I say that there are not eight, as Calchas says, but nine in the womb, all males, and that they will be born tomorrow exactly at the sixth hour.” When it turned out to be so, Calchas died of a broken heart….

But even this isn’t the final note in the genealogy of the ancient Greek seers. In their book People of the Sea, The Search for the Philistines, by Trude and Moshe Dothan, we find the following:

The last version of his [Mopsus’] biography was preserved by the fifth-century BC Lydian historian Xanthus. Xanthus placed Mopsus’ greatest feat at the Philistine city of Ashkelon, where Mopsos cast the local goddess and her son into the pond of the city, thereby destroying the power of the local cult.

No other Hebrew judge … was remembered for his physical prowess (or erotic exploits) as were the Greek heroes. Samson'’ spiritual strength—if it could be called that—was of a completely different nature; he delighted in posing riddles.

In this respect he resembled Mopsos. But there are other parallels. His exploits at various places were memorialized by names, such as the “Hill of the Jawbone,” where he slew a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, or the “Spring of the Caller,” where after an appeal to God his thirst was quenched. Finally, like Mopsos, in a daring raid on another Philistine capital, Gaza, Samson laid low the prestige of the local god Dagon.

No one knows if a connection between Mopsus and Samson really existed although Samson’s tribe, called the Dan, was remarkably like that of the Danaäns who fought in the Trojan War.

But following the Trojan War, the Mycenaean Civilization collapsed and a great migration to the coast of Asia occurred. The reason for the collapse is not fully known, but many of the Greek palaces were burned by a mysterious Sea People. The Sea People have been connected with the Philistines, and some have wondered at apparent connections between the Philistines and the ancient Greeks. A rather startling connection is that Goliath was in all probability Greek. His armor and battle tactics [that of calling out another single combatant to settle the dispute one-on-one] were unmistakably Greek.

The other part of the story of course is: What happened to the descendents of Oedipus? And we learn that from Herodotus. (See the attachment.) Oedipus last known descendent, Theras, went to the island of Calliste where he made himself king over the descendents of Cadmos left there when he originally left Phoenicia searching for his sister Europa. Theras changed the name of the island to Thera, for himself, but the island is today known as Santorini.

Recent archaeological discoveries on Santorini point to an irruption of the volcanic island in the year 1628 BC. The irruption destroyed an advanced civilization there of which we have no record. The only possible word we have of this catastrophe is the description of the destruction of Atlantis provided by Plato. Many have come to believe that Santorini was indeed Atlantis.