Thebaid

Amphiaraus plummets into the Underworld, much to the shock of its citizens (1-20). Dis, the king of hell, rules here. He personally judges the dead, though “nothing human aroused his pity—he raged at them all” (23). Minos and Rhadmanathus—the usual judges of the Underworld—ineffectually attempt to temper his judgements (27-31).

Dis is shocked and affronted to see starlight above him. He suspects one of his Olympian brothers, Jupiter or Neptune, is waging war on him, and shares a litany of historical offenses against his kingdom (e.g. Theseus and Pirithous’s attempted rape of his wife Proserpina, Heracles abducting his three-headed dog Cerberus, Orpheus arriving to reclaim his wife Eurydice). Dis himself has only left the Underworld once—to abduct Proserpina and make her his bride (31-64). He sends Tisiphone to harass the world above in revenge (65-79). He then turns his wrath on Amphiaraus, who tells Dis he means no harm and begs his mercy (80-98). He shares his story—his identity as a priest of Apollo, his unwillingness to go to war, his wife’s betrayal, his strange experience being dragged to hell—and laments that no aspect of body remains on earth to be mourned. Dis reluctantly backs down (99-126).

Back on the surface, the Argives are terrified by what happened. Messengers bring Adrastus the unbelievable story and Rumor flies. Men begin deserting. Night falls, forcing a brief truce (127-61). Amphiaraus’s allies are so that they barely eat, barely look after their arms. They wonder what will happen to them, if a man so devout could be treated so contemptibly by the gods, and who will now interrupt the gods’ signs for them. They speak kindly of Amphiaraus and hope he is well in the Underworld but are unable to perform any of the normal funeral rites because his body is missing (164-217).

In Thebes, the troops are partying. They mock Amphiaraus, praising their own seer Tiresias, and recount famous Theban myths (218-39). Even Oedipus emerges for the feast, cleaned up and apparently in good humor—“Why lay concealed: not the fortunate turn of the Tyrian War— / war alone cheers him up” (250-1). In the Argive camp, Theban jeers and catcalls keep a worried Adrastus awake (259-70).

At dawn, Adrastus calls a council to find a new seer for the Argives to replace Amphiaraus. Everyone nominates Thiodamus, a young colleague of Amphiaraus, who must be persuaded to accept due to his own sense of modesty and youth (271-93). His first act is building an altar and giving offerings to Earth to appease her, begging her to recognize that even they, as foreigners, are still human beings, and asking that she not steal them from the surface again. Finally he addresses Amphiaraus himself, claiming he will perform prophetic rites for him, not Apollo, and begging his favor (294-341).

In Thebes, Tisiphone and Bellona marshal seven leaders to the seven gates of the city. The Argives are less eager; “BUT NOW, WAR calls!” (342-73). Statius asks the Muse Calliope to refresh him for the next round of narration (373-4). Mars himself stands on the field of battle; the armies clash (383-401). Before war had made a “gallant show”—everyone looked splendid and noble in their armor, everyone was well-ordered—but now “raging Madness and Courage, careless of life, had released their force” (402-11). The fight is a chaotic ugly mess (412-27). Heroes on both sides brutally butcher others (428-71).

The star is Tydeus, who is favored by the goddess Minerva (also known as Pallas). When Tydeus attempts to kill Haemon, a favorite of the deified Hercules, Hercules himself meets with Minerva on the battlefield. He yields to her, acknowledging the great favor she showed him while he was alive, and withdraws his protection of Haemon. Minerva’s rage is mollified by the honor he pays her. When Haemon retreats, sensing Hercules’s absence, she deflects Tydeus’s spear and saves him (497-535).

Tydeus’s aristeia continues. He kills many, including Atys, the betrothed of Eteocles and Polynices’ sister, Ismene. Undeterred by her family’s troubled history, Atys was eager for their marriage, now interrupted by the war. Not knowing of Tydeus’s prowess, he tries to take him on, but Tydeus, “judging the rascal not / worthy of sword or spear,” shoots him in the groin with an arrow. He tells the dying man he is not worth a killing blow, or even the time it would take to strip him of his spoils (554-96).

Meanwhile, Ismene and Antigone talk about their family’s ill fortune. Ismene shares that the night before, she had dreamt of Atys and their wedding—which she claims to not be eager for—and that Atys’s crazed mother demanded Ismene return her son (621-35). She wonders what it means. Just then, the dying Atys is brought in. He asks to see Ismene, and he looks at Ismene until he dies. Ismene admits her true feelings for him and breaks down in tears (636-54).

Tydeus’s rout continues. He vaunts and crows for a worthy opponent—and spots Eteocles. The two men fight as mortals and gods look on. A Fury blocks Tydeus’s blow, “keeping Eteocles safe for his infamous brother” (687). The Thebans shield Eteocles with their bodies as Tydeus tries to hack at him (688-99). Tydeus finally notices that Minerva is not looking at him—she is instead appealing to her father for mercy on his behalf. Tydeus is struck by the spear of an unknown assailant (711-29). His allies carry him from the battlefield.

Tydeus realizes he is dying and does not care, “… funeral pomp is of no interest / to me. I hate my body,” he says, “My useless, broken flesh” (736-8). All he wants is the head of Melanippus, one of Thebes’s defenders. Capaneus finds the man and brings him to Tydeus. Tydeus “mad / with joy and rage when he saw that face gasping for air, / saw those fierce eyes, and in the sight perceived himself”—and insists they behead Melanippus anyways (752-3). He is content with dying so long as he can crack open Melanippus’s skull and eat his brain. Just then Minerva returns from her father, having successfully petitioned for immortal glory for Tydeus, but she sees what he has done and flees in disgust (759-66).

Eteocles plays on his men’s anger at the death and decapitation of Melanippus: “On our side—humane swords and firebrands: on theirs—naked hatred, ferocity needing no arms” (12-20). Like vultures, the Thebans scavenge Tydeus’s corpse for spoils (24-31). Rumor brings word of the desecration to Polynices; it devastates him. He collapses on the corpse of his friend, telling him he is now a forever exile, as he has lost “my second, better brother” (53). He wishes Tydeus himself had killed him long before this day and is barely prevented from taking his own life in grief (49-85).

Hippomedon stands guard against the encroaching force “like a crag defying the waves” (91). Eteocles mocks him and attacks ineffectually; others try and fail to move him from the corpse of Tydeus, which he protects like a mother cow over her calf (91-146). Tisiphone herself arrives on orders from Dis (see Book 8, lines 65-79). She addresses the terrified Hippomedon, telling him that Adrastus is screaming for him, borne away by the enemy: “Why hesitate? / Do we go? or does the dead man detain you, the live one / count so little?” (166-7). Hippomedon believes her and reluctantly follows—only to find that Adrastus is fine. With his protector gone, the Thebans mutilate Tydeus’s corpse (180-95).

Hippomedon rushes back, though he knows the fight is now pointless. He rides Tydeus’s horse Wingfoot, which, despite its initial skittishness at a new master, is also eager to avenge Tydeus (204-22). Hippomedon drives the Thebans down to the raging river Ismenos, where several drown or are easily chopped up by Tydeus in the surf (225-79). Tydeus presses on even after the death of Wingfoot, running “mad with his sword” and killing many, including the Theban twins Lichas and Anthedonian (284-314).

Statius asks the Muses to help him describe how the river Ismenos himself dragged Hippomedon under the waves (315-8). Ismenos’s grandson Crenaeus, who often played safely in the river as a child, attacks Hippomedon, accusing him of defiling sacred waters with carnage. Hippomedon kills him. With his dying breath, Crenaeus cries for his mother, a river nymph (319-50). She desperately searches the corpse-clogged waters until she finds him and brings him to the depths, where she mourns his youthful beauty and demands justice from his grandfather, Ismenos (351-403).

Her laments rouse Ismenos, who was lounging in his secret grotto. Statius describes his waking and water-like movement (404-20). Ismenos rages first at Jupiter for allowing his stream to be defiled by so many bodies, despite his own faithful service to the god and to Bacchus (421-41). He then turns to Tydeus, telling him he will pay. He summons torrents from many natural sources and swarms the hero, who literally fights the river, even taunting Ismenos for the weakness of his dead grandson (442-80). Finally divine strength overcomes mortal will; “No flight now for the wretch, no chance for a dignified death!” (490-1). Ismenos crushes Hippomedon under an ash trunk and traps him in a whirlpool. Hippomedon cries out to Mars, asking if he will allow such dishonor on a fine soldier (506-509).

It is not Mars who hears him, but Juno, who loves Hippomedon as a citizen of her favorite city, Argos. She convinces Jupiter to force the river to back down, but it is too late to save Hippomedon (510-25). He is finally cut down by Theban allies, who fear to approach even his corpse. At last, Hypseus strips his helmet and vaunts over him; he is quickly cut down for his insolence by one of the last remaining members of the Seven, Capaneus, who strips his corpse in turn (526-65). “Even-handed in war’s harsh turn and turn about,” Statius tells us, “Mars / interwove mutual wounds for Greeks and Sidonians both […] each side consoles itself with the other’s grief” (566-9).

The scene shifts to Atalanta, the famous huntress and mother of the young Parthenopaeus (she had tried to stop him from going to war; see Book 4, lines 309-43). Atalanta has been having awful nightmares of being driven from the woods, her son dying. The worst dream centers on her favorite oak tree, where she keeps her hunting trophies, being chopped down, “its limbs bleeding a gory dew” (570-601). She rushes to her patron goddess Diana’s sacred shrine and finds the oak tree still standing. She reiterates her vow to virginity—though she was unwillingly assaulted, once—and to the sort of wilderness lifestyle beloved to Diana. She begs Diana to protect her son or at least to let her see him one last time; the goddess has already departed, heading straight to Thebes to help Parthenopaeus.

She finds her twin brother Apollo there, who is still mourning the death of his seer Amphiaraus at the end of Book 7. He commiserates with her helplessness—neither can seem to protect their favorites, despite their divinity. No one can oppose Fate (637-62). Diana maintains that at least she can give Parthenopaeus a glorious death with the assistance of her arrows (663-9).

Parthenopaeus is in the fray in finery with a woodland edge, his sword and shieled too large and heavy for him; “he liked hearing his scabbard clank, his quiver rattle / and rustle” (696-7). Even his enemies avoid hitting him, seeing reminders of their own sons in his youth and beauty (699-711). Diana mourns that the woods are too small a pond for him, and that she can do nothing to prevent his impending doom. Still, she lends him her divine assistance (712-35).

Parthenopaeus enters an aristeia (736-75). The Thebans rally. Amphion taunts Parthenopaeus to stop playing at war games and go back to the woods. Parthenopaeus taunts back and is only saved by Diana’s interference (as he was once saved by Atalanta in a boar hunt) (776-800). Like Atalanta, Diana tries to tell him to back off, but Parthenopaeus refuses—he wants only to kill Amphion (801-20).

From heaven, Venus riles up Mars to protect their Theban descendants (i.e. the descendants of their daughter, Harmony) and to stop the upstart virgin Diana. Mars threatens Diana with physical violence; war is his realm, not hers. She retreats. (821-840). Mars draws the savage warrior Dryas to face Parthenopaeus, who is already feeling weak from the exertion of battle. A terrified Parthenopaeus cannot keep up and is dealt a killing blow—though Dryas is also, by an unknown assailant (841-76). As he dies, Parthenopaeus asks his comrade Dorceus to comfort his mother Atalanta and break his death to her gently (885-90). He speaks to Atalanta, though she is not there, telling her she was right and to not worry about him anymore (891-907).