The Theban Stories

The great Greek playwright Sophocles (c. 496-406 B.C.) describes the city of Thebes "as the only city where women are mothers of gods." He refers to the mothers of the divine Dionysus and Heracles [see Parents of Hercules], Semele and Alcmene, both of whom were born in this ancient Greek Boeotian city. [Source: (Sophocles fragment [773 Radt]) - Michael Gagarin and Elaine Fantham.]

With such a claim to fame, it is small wonder that many of the stories from Greek tragedy and Greco-Roman mythology feature Thebes.

Theban Cycle

There is a Theban Cycle (Greek: Θηβαϊκὸς Κύκλος) -- like the epic cycle on the city of Troy -- that refers to four almost entirely lost Greek epics about Oedipus and his family.

N.B.: Sometimes "epic cycle" refers to both the Trojan War cycle and the Theban cycle of epic poems; sometimes "Theban cycle" refers to all the pivotal stories about Thebes.

Publius Papinius Statius (c.45-c.96) wrote a 12-book latin epic about the Theban cycle. Statius' poem, known as the Thebaid, was based on Greek epic poems on the topic -- now lost, and Greek tragedy.

Three Generations of a Cursed Family

In Etruscan Myths, classicist (and especially Etruscan archaeologist) Larissa Bonfante, with her co-author Judith Swaddling, describes the Theban Cycle as the stories about three generations of a cursed family. The topic interests Bonfante because the stories were popular with Etruscan painters who knew the stories from Greek tragedy and painted, imported Greek vases.

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