Sarah's Reviews > The Seven Against Thebes

The Seven Against Thebes is a play centered around the prelude to the attack on Thebes by seven warlords, including one of Oedipus' sons. I like to think of it as a prequel to Antigone; in fact, I think I could throw this play in with the Theban plays of Sophocles even though it was a different playwright who wrote it. That being said, if this play is read before the Theban plays, it ties in very, very well.

I didn't think that this was Aeschylus' best play ever- in fact, it is one of the weaker ones that I have read by him in comparison to the brilliant Oresteia trilogy. However, it is still a very clever play that is about one of the most famous stories of Greek mythology. Having read Antigone before, I was very fascinated to actually be able to tell what kind of people the brothers of Antigone are and what the drive is for them to kill each other so brutally. By the end of this play, I was very surprised at the clean tie-in the conclusion would make to the beginning of Antigone. I would highly recommend reading this after Oedipus at Colonus and before Antigone.