Theseus and the Suppliants

Abstract In Euripides’ Suppliants, most explicitly of all the tragedies in which he appears, Theseus is presented as the representative of the city of Athens and as the mouthpiece for certain modes of thought and behaviour which belong to the idealized Athens of the encomia discussed in the previous chapter. After the failure of Polynices’ expedition against Thebes, in which the Seven against Thebes fell before the city walls, the Theban victors refused to allow their bodies to be buried, or to be returned to the Argives for burial. Thus the Argive king, Adrastus, comes to Theseus at the start of the play and asks him to help him retrieve them. Although at first Theseus refuses to do so, on the grounds that Adrastus’ expedition was grounded in his ill-counsel and impiety (Supp. I 10-249), his mother Aethra persuades him to change his mind by reminding him of his duty as an Athenian (Supp. 297-364). At this point, a herald from Thebes arrives: their encounter comprises a debate concerning the respective merits of tyranny and democracy (399-462), followed by an exposition of the rights and wrongs surrounding the burial of the dead (Supp. 465-563). Theseus is not cowed by the herald’s insistence that he should not interfere in what is not his business, and fulfils his promise to Adrastus by going off to fight the Thebans for the return of the dead. After anxious speculation from the chorus over the outcome of his expedition (Supp. 598-633), a messenger returns from the battlefield with the good news that Theseus has won the battle.