THE SEVEN AGAINST THEBES, 45

tween the hostile brothers. Hach was exasperated
to bitter hatred of the other, and they fought with
a violence and desperation that could end only in the
death of one of the combatants. As it proved, the
curse of Cidipus was in the keeping of the gods, and
both fell dead,—the fate for which their aged father
had prayed. But the duel had decided nothing, and
the two armies renewed the battle.

And now death and bloodshed ran riot; men fell
by hundreds; deeds of heroic valor were achieved
on either side; feats of individual daring were dis-
played like those which Homer sings in the story of
Troy. But the battle ended in the defeat of the
assailants. Of the seven leaders only two survived,
and one of these, Amphiaraiis, was about to suffer
the fate he had foretold, when Jupiter rescued him
from death by a miracle. The earth opened beneath
him, and he, with his chariot and horses, was re-
ceived unhurt into her bosom. Rendered immortal
by the king of the gods, he was afterwards wor-
shipped as a god himself.

Adrastus, the only remaining chief, was forced to
fly, and was preserved by the matchless speed of his
horse. He reached Argos in safety, but brought
with him nothing but “his garment of woe and his
black-maned steed.”

Thus ended, in defeat and disaster to the assailants,
the first of the celebrated sieges of Thebes. It was
followed by a tragic episode which remains to be
told, that of the sisterly fidelity of Antigone and
her sorrowful fate. Her story, which the dramatists
have mado immortal, is thus told in the legend.