Adrastus - Second War Against Thebes

Second War Against Thebes

Ten years after this, Adrastus persuaded the seven sons of the heroes who had fallen in the war against Thebes to make a new attack upon that city, and Amphiaraus now declared that the gods approved of the undertaking, and promised success. This war is celebrated in ancient story as the War of the Epigoni. Thebes was taken and razed to the ground, after the greater part of its inhabitants had left the city on the advice of Tiresias. The only Argive hero that fell in this war was Aegialeus, the son of Adrastus. After having built a temple of Nemesis in the neighborhood of Thebes, he set out on his return home. But, weighed down by old age and grief at the death of his son, he died at Megara and was buried there. After his death he was worshipped in several parts of Greece, as at Megara, at Sicyon where his memory was celebrated in tragic choruses, and in Attica.

The legends about Adrastus and the two wars against Thebes have furnished ample materials for the epic as well as tragic poets of Greece, and some works of art relating to the stories about Adrastus are mentioned in Pausanias.

From Adrastus the female patronymic "Adrastine" was formed.