1. The Theban Cycle

2. Cadmus founded the city of Thebes.
Cadmus and his brothers were sent in search of his sister Europa who had been kidnapped by Zeus.
Cadmus sought advice from the Oracle of Delphi.

3. The Oracle tells him to follow a special cow and to found a city where it stops. Thebes!
A water dragon at a nearby spring kills his friends
After he slays the dragon Ares makes him do penance for eight years having killed his sacred dragon.

5. For completing his penance, Cadmus gets Harmonia, Ares’ and Aphrodite’s daughter. Lots of kids and bad luck followed.
Cadmus was turned into a dragon after the hardships. Harmonia follows his example.
He left Thebes to his grandson Pentheus.
Cadmus is also said to have introduced the alphabet to Greece.

6. At some point the twins Zethus and Amphion (not descendants of Cadmus) intercede and become kings of Thebes.
While building the walls of Thebes Zethus struggled moving huge stones while his brother played the lyre.
When confronted, Amphion played the stones into place.

8. CADMUS’ DESCENDANTS
He was the grandfather of Dionysus through his daughter Semele.
Amphion married his daughter Niobe, whose kids were killed by Artemis and Apollo Zethus married Thebe.
Labdacus son of Polydorus, Cadmus’ grandson, and Pentheus son of Echion and Agave, another grandson, were both supposedly torn to pieces by Bacchae.

10. In time Laius, son of Labdacus, became king after his father died.
Before becoming king of Thebes, Laius traveled and stayed with King Pelops in Pisa.
While there he took a fancy to Pelops’ son Chrysippus. Laius took him back to Thebes where we are told he taught the boy to drive a chariot.
The rape is accompanied by a curse.
Chariots and Pelops!

12. OEDIPUS
Laius received the famous Oracle telling him that if he impregnated his wife, the child would one day kill and replace him.
Despite his best efforts, he got drunk one day and did it.
Swollen Foot was born.
They pinned Oedipus’ ankles and sent him to be exposed.

13. The Theban shepherd assigned to the task passed him on to another shepherd, and thus he grew up in Corinth.
There he was raised as if the child of the King and Queen of Corinth, but occasionally someone tells him he is not really theirs.
He went to Delphi one day to clear up whether or not the Corinthians were his real parents, and got the famous oracle instead of a straight answer.
At this point he hit the road to Thebes determined never to return to Corinth.
Might’ve gone better if he’d known himself.

14. The Delphic Oracle is famous for the two sayings written on the temple, one of which was, “Know yourself.”

15. CROSSROADS
On the road to Thebes he was attacked by other travelers whom he killed (his father).
Upon reaching Thebes he defeated Sphinx thereby saving Thebes.
The city welcomed him as king since the old king had vanished.
He married the Queen (his mother) with whom he had several kids.
Thebes was punished for harboring the killer of Laius.

19. THEBAN LITERATURE
Anagnorisis – recognition! Blindness vs. Sight -Oedipus vs. Teiresias. Oidipous Tyrannos
Oedipus punished himself with banishment. His sons agree to share rule of the city; Polynices does but Eteocles doesn’t. Seven Against Thebes, Oidipous at Kolonos
Creon becomes king and the whole family eventually is lost. Antigone
Creon finally died after the birth of Herakles possibly killed by Theseus when reutrning bodies to the Argives. Statius’ Thebaid.