Adrastus

So Polyneices went to Argos and married into the family of Adrastus, and having collected a numerous force of Argives is leading them here;

He is standing by Adrastus, near the tomb of Niobe’s seven unwed daughters.

Polyneices after giving Thebes to the flames dedicated these shields to the gods?

Mayhap thou’lt say, Why pass the land of Pelops o’er, and lay this toil on Athens?

for it turns an eye on suffering, and hath in thee a young and gallant king, for want whereof to lead their hosts states ere now have often perished.

Adrastus:

But Adrastus, son of Gordias who was son of Midas, this Adrastus, the destroyer of his own brother and of the man who purified him, when the tomb was undisturbed by the presence of men, killed himself there by the sepulcher, seeing clearly now that he was the most heavily afflicted of all whom he knew.

Having said this, Croesus sent for Adrastus the Phrygian and when he came addressed him thus:

” “O King,” the man answered, “I am the son of Gordias the son of Midas, and my name is Adrastus;

of the Suppliants, says, “it rests with Adrastus to take the oath, to whom, as sovereign, the sole right of binding the country by treaties belongs.

This was a received opinion in ancient times, as we find from the language of Aeschylus, in whose Tragedy of the Suppliants, the King of Argos, addressing a number of the daughters of Danaus, on their coming from Egypt, says, “If the sons of Egypt exercise controul over you, maintaining that they are authorised to do so by the law of the state, as being the nearest allied by blood, who can resist them?

— Not even if you should speak of Adrastus son of Talaus, or of Tantalus, or of Pelops, should I be vexed, if I am going to become better for it.

his piety toward the gods in connexion with the supplications of Adrastus and the children of Heracles when, by defeating the Peloponnesians in battle, he saved the lives of the children, and to Adrastus he restored for burial, despite the Thebans, the bodies of those who had died beneath the walls of the Cadmea;

For who does not himself know or has not heard from the tragic poets at the Dionysia of the misfortunes which befell Adrastus at Thebes, how in his desire to restore to power the son of Oedipus, his own son-in-law, he lost a great number of his Argive soldiers in the battle and saw all of his captains slain, though saving his own life in dishonor, and, when he failed to obtain a truce and was unab …

But how pre-eminent our city stood in war at that time—for it was with the desire to show this that I discussed what happened at Thebes —is, I consider, clearly revealed to all by the circumstances which compelled the king of the Argives to become a suppliant of Athens and which so disposed the authorities at Thebes towards us that they chose of their own accord to accommodate themselves to the wo …

When our people heard this plea, they let no time go by but at once dispatched ambassadors to Thebes to advise her people that they be more reverent in their deliberations regarding the recovery of the dead and that they render a decision which would be more lawful than that which they had previously made, and to hint to them also that the Athenians would not countenance their transgression of the …

but long before the Trojan War (for it is only fair that those who dispute about immemorial rights should draw their arguments from that early time) there came to us the sons of Heracles and, a little before them, Adrastus, Talaus’s son, king of Argos.

Adrastus, on his return from the expedition against Thebes where he had met with disaster and had not by his own efforts been able to recover the bodies of those who had fallen under the Cadmean fortress, called upon our city to lend aid in a misfortune which was of universal concern, and not to suffer that men who die in battle be left unburied nor that ancient custom and immemorial law be brought to naught.

for they did not do things by halves, but so completely revolutionized the fortunes of either monarch that Adrastus, who had seen fit to throw himself on our mercy, went his way, having in despite of his foes won all that he had asked, while Eurystheus, who had expected to overpower us, was himself made captive and compelled to sue for mercy;

For when I came to Dorian Argos, I made Adrastus my father-in-law.