rs around the walls of the city. By the gate of Proetus
stands the raging Tydeus with his helm of hairy crests and his buckler
tricked out with a full moon and a gleaming sky full of stars, against
whom Eteocles will marshal the wary son of Astacus, a noble and a modest
youth, who detests vain boastings and yet is not a coward.

By the Electron gate is stationed the giant Campaneus, who bears about
him the device of a naked man with a gleaming torch in his hands, crying
out "I will burn the city." Against him will be pitted the doughty
Polyphontes, favored by Diana and other gods.

Against the gate of Neis the mighty Eteoclus is wheeling his foaming
steeds, bearing a buckler blazoned with a man in armor treading the
steps of a ladder to his foeman's tower. Megareus, the offspring of
Creon, is the valiant warrior who will either pay the debt of his
nurture to his land or will decorate his father's house with the spoils
of the conquered Eteoclus.

The fiery Hippomedon is raging at the gate of Onca Minerva, bearing upon
his buckler a Typhon darting forth smoke through his fire-breathing
mouth, eager to meet the brave Hyperbius, son of OEnops, who has been
selected to check his impetuous onslaught.

At the gate of Boreas the youthful Parthenopaeus takes his stand, a
fair-faced stripling, upon whose face the youthful down is just making
its appearance. Opposed to him stands Actor, a man who is no braggart,
but who will not submit to boastful tauntings or permit the rash
intruder to batter his way into the city.

The mighty Amphiarus is waiting at the gate of Homoloeis, and in the
meantime reproaches his ally, Tydeus, calling him a homicide, and
Polynices he rebukes with having brought a mighty armament into his
native city. Lasthenes, he of the aged mind but youthful form, is the
Thebian who has been chosen to marshal his forces against this invader.

At the seventh gate stands Polynices, brother of Eteocles, bearing a
well-wrought shield with a device constructed upon it of a woman leading
on a mailed warrior, bringing havoc to his paternal city and desirous of
becoming a fratricide. Against him Eteocles will go and face him in
person, and leader against leader, brother against brother and foeman
against foeman, take his stand.

Eteocles then departs to engage in battle, and soon after the messenger
enters to announce that six of the Theban warriors have been successful,
but that Polynices and Eteocles have both fall