Kris Chon Antigone Research Excursion: Thebes and its Tales

Introduction

While reading Antigone, I recalled having heard the city of Thebes before. After thinking for a bit, I realized that it was from the Disney adaptation of the story Hercules, which, although wildly different from the source material, was still broadly similar. In our class discussion, we talked about how Antigone was set in Thebes as to discuss the political state of Athens while avoiding the ire of the higher, ruling class. Thus, I wondered whether or not there were a number of Greek narratives based in Thebes, given it could be used as an easy scapegoat to discuss controversial themes and ideas without repercussion. 

*Note: Please view the exhibit in Fullscreen for ease of viewing and formatting.

Conclusions

Perhaps my research was too shallow, but what I found regarding Greek narratives set in Thebes was that there were a lot of adaptations of Oedipodea, but little else. There was also a stage play for Heracles by Euripides, but it largely disregarded the Labours of Heracles and focused moreso on the tragic component of his tale. After I felt that my research had hit a dead end, I admittedly did go to Wikipedia and Google to see if there were any stories that I had missed entirely.

On Wikipedia, I found two epic poems called Epigoni and Alcmeonis, but searching for these on databases yielded little to nothing, given that almost nothing is known of the Alcmeonis, and that Epigoni is also lost, though to a lesser extent than Alcmeonis.

When researching mythos about Thebes, I learned of Cadmus, founder of Thebes, yet I couldn't find any remaining narratives about him. I found this odd, but I suppose that his legend would have to have been passed down through word of mouth.

That being said, something that I found interesting was that a modern adaptation of Antigone, The Burial at Thebes, was viewed differently simply based on when it was released. That's not really a new discovery, people's opinions about works, artistic or literary, change wildly based on the time period, but it is so apparent in a case like this, where this is a story whose adaptations spanned over two millennia. Note that when I refer to The Burial of Thebes as an adaptation of Antigone, I don't mean it in the way that Home Fire is an adaptation of the themes of Antigone, I mean it's more or less another translation.

Overall, it was interesting to delve into the ancient narratives based in a city, but it was slightly less extensive than I had thought going into the project.