succeeds to the throne of Thebes. The country around is vexed with
a terrible monster, with the face of a woman, the wings of a bird, and the
tail of a lion, called the Sphinx, who has learned from the Muses a
riddle, which she proposed to the Thebans, and on every failure to resolve
it one of them was devoured. But no person can solve the riddle. The king
offers his crown and his sister Jocasta, wife of Laius, in marriage to any
one who would explain the riddle. OEdipus solves it, and is made king of
Thebes, and marries Jocasta. A fatal curse rests upon him. Jocasta,
informed by the gods of her relationship, hangs herself in agony. OEdipus
endures great miseries, as well as his children, whom he curses, and who
quarrel about their inheritance, which quarrel leads to the siege of
Thebes by Adrastus, king of Argos, who seeks to restore Polynices--one of
the sons of OEdipus, to the throne of which he was dispossessed. The
Argetan chieftains readily enter into the enterprise, assisted by numerous
auxiliaries from Arcadia and Messenia. The Cadmeans, assisted by the
Phocians, march out to resist the invaders, who are repulsed, in
consequence of the magnanimity of a generous youth, who offers himself a
victim to Ares. Eteocles then proposed to his brother, Polynices, the
rival claimants, to decide the quarrel by single combat. It resulted in
the death of both, and then in the renewal of the general contest, and the
destruction of the Argeian chiefs, and Adrastus's return to Argos in shame
and woe.

(M337) But Creon, the father of the self-sacrificing Menaeceus, succeeds on
the death of the rival brothers, to the administration of Thebes. A second
siege takes place, conducted by Adrastus, and the sons of those who had
been slain. Thebes now falls, and Thereander, the son of Polynices, is
made king. The legends of Thebes have furnished the great tragedians
Sophocles and Euripides, with their finest subjects. In the fable of the
Sphinx we trace a connection between Thebes and ancient Egypt.

But all the legends of ancient Greece yield in interest to that of Troy,
which Homer chose as the subject of his immortal epic.

(M338) Dardanus, a son of Zeus, is the primitive ancestor of the Trojan
kings, whose seat of power was Mount Ida. His son, Erichthonius, became
the richest of mankind, and had in his pastures three thousand mares. His
son, Tros, was the father of Ilus, Assarcus, and Ganymede. The latter was
stolen by Zeus to be h