depended on his life, forthwith
killed himself before the city gates,--thus securing by innocent blood
the powerful aid of the god of war.

Long and strenuous was the contest that succeeded, each of the heroes
fiercely attacking the gate adjudged to him. But the gods were on the
side of the Thebans and every assault proved in vain. Parthenopaeus, one
of the seven, was killed by a stone, and another, Capaneus, while
furiously mounting the walls from a scaling-ladder, was slain by a
thunderbolt cast by Jupiter, and fell dead to the earth.

The assailants, terrified by this portent, drew back, and were pursued
by the Thebans, who issued from their gates. But the battle that was
about to take place on the open plain was stopped by Eteocles, who
proposed to settle it by a single combat with his brother Polynikes, the
victory to be given to the side whose champion succeeded in this mortal
duel. Polynikes, filled with hatred of his brother, eagerly accepted
this challenge. Adrastus, the leader of the assailing army, assented,
and the unholy combat began.

Never was a more furious combat than that between the hostile brothers.
Each was exasperated to bitter hatred of the other, and they fought with
a violence and desperation that could end only in the death of one of
the combatants. As it proved, the curse of OEdipus was in the keeping
of the gods, and both fell dead,--the fate for which their aged father
had prayed. But the duel had decided nothing, and the two armies renewed
the battle.

And now death and bloodshed ran riot; men fell by hundreds; deeds of
heroic valor were achieved on either side; feats of individual daring
were displayed like those which Homer sings in the story of Troy. But
the battle ended in the defeat of the assailants. Of the seven leaders
only two survived, and one of these, Amphiaraues, was about to suffer the
fate he had foretold, when Jupiter rescued him from death by a miracle.
The earth opened beneath him, and he, with his chariot and horses, was
received unhurt into her bosom. Rendered immortal by the king of the
gods, he was afterwards worshipped as a god himself.

Adrastus, the only remaining chief, was forced to fly, and was preserved
by the matchless speed of his horse. He reached Argos in safety, but
brought with him nothing but "his garment of woe and his black-maned
steed."

Thus ended, in defeat and disaster to the assailants, the first of the
celebrated sieges of Thebes. It was fo