Seven Against Thebes depicts the third story in the Oedipus trilogy. The first story in the trilogy tells of the curse that is visited upon Laius, which threatened Thebes if Laius had any offspring. In the second tragedy, Oedipus cannot escape his father's curse, and fulfills it with the murder of his father and marriage to his mother. When Oedipus discovers that he has fulfilled the prophecy, he blinds himself and promises that his sons will have to do battle over his property, thus setting up the actions of the third part of the trilogy, the fight between Eteocles and Polyneices. The story of Antigone and of her insistence on following her conscience, which she places before the laws of the state, is also the subject of a tragedy, Sophocles' s Antigone.

We do not know how Aeschylus's audience reacted to Seven Against Thebes, but we...