Oedipus unknowingly married his mother Jocasta after saving Thebes from the Sphinx. They had four children — Antigone, Ismene, Eteocles, and Polynices — before the truth of their incestuous union was revealed.
⚠ Pausanias (9.5.11) cites the Oedipodia as attributing the four children to a second wife Euryganeia, not Jocasta. Sophocles and Apollodorus follow the Jocasta tradition.
Creon sentenced his niece Antigone to be entombed alive for defying his edict against burying Polynices. In Sophocles' Antigone, their clash embodies the conflict between divine law and state authority.
Antigone mourned Eteocles alongside Polynices as both brothers fell in their duel at Thebes. Creon's differential treatment of the brothers' bodies — honoring Eteocles, forbidding Polynices's burial — provoked Antigone's defiance.
Haemon, Creon's son and Antigone's betrothed, pleaded with his father to spare her life. Finding Antigone dead by hanging in her tomb, Haemon killed himself beside her body.
Ismene refused to help Antigone bury Polynices, fearing Creon's punishment. After Antigone's arrest, Ismene tried to share her sister's guilt, but Antigone rejected her claim to the act.
Antigone's mother Jocasta hanged herself upon discovering her incestuous marriage to Oedipus. Antigone's own death by hanging in her tomb echoed her mother's end.
Antigone was the granddaughter of Laius, whose murder by Oedipus and the resulting curse drove the tragedy of the entire Theban royal house, culminating in Antigone's own death.
Menoeceus, Creon's son, sacrificed himself to save Thebes during the war of the Seven. His death and that of Antigone's brothers in the same war created the conditions for Antigone's conflict with Creon.
Mount Cithaeron loomed over Antigone's family history — it was where infant Oedipus was exposed, where Pentheus was torn apart, and near where her brothers fought their fatal duel outside Thebes.
Antigone guided her blind father Oedipus through years of wandering exile after his fall from the throne of Thebes, accompanying him until his mysterious death at Colonus.
Antigone defied Creon's edict to perform burial rites for her brother Polynices after his death at the seventh gate of Thebes. Her devotion to Polynices was the central act of Sophocles' Antigone.
Antigone defied Creon's decree forbidding burial of the Argive dead after the siege of the Seven against Thebes, secretly burying her brother Polynices and accepting death as punishment.
Antigone defied Creon's edict by burying her brother Polynices outside Thebes. She was entombed alive in a cave near the city, where she hanged herself.
Theseus rescued Antigone and Ismene from Creon's men at Colonus, protecting them and their father Oedipus under Athenian hospitality in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus.
Tiresias warned Creon that the gods demanded Polynices's burial and Antigone's release. His prophecy of disaster finally moved Creon to relent, though too late to save Antigone.
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