Eteocles’s Family Tree

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Family

• Jocasta(parent),Oedipus(parent),Antigone(sibling),Ismene(sibling),Polynices(sibling)— Marriage

  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.

Enemy of

• Oedipus,Polynices

  Oedipus cursed his sons Eteocles and Polynices for their neglect and mistreatment during his exile, prophesying that they would kill each other fighting over the throne of Thebes.

• Polynices,Thebes

  Eteocles and Polynices fought over the throne of Thebes after Oedipus's exile. Their conflict culminated in the war of the Seven against Thebes, where the brothers killed each other in single combat at the city's gates.

• Parthenopaeus

  Parthenopaeus attacked the gates of Thebes as one of the Seven, assaulting the city defended by Eteocles. The siege pitted the Seven champions against the Theban king and his chosen defenders.

• Seven against Thebes

  The Seven against Thebes marched to depose Eteocles, who had refused to yield the Theban throne to his brother Polynices. Eteocles and Polynices killed each other in single combat during the siege.

Rules over

• Thebes

  Eteocles held the throne of Thebes, refusing to yield it to his brother Polynices as agreed. His refusal to share power provoked the war of the Seven against Thebes.

Associated with

• Antigone

  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.

• Creon

  Creon honored Eteocles with full funeral rites after the brothers' duel at Thebes, declaring him the city's defender against his treasonous brother Polynices.

• Jocasta

  In Euripides' Phoenician Women, Jocasta pleaded with Eteocles to share the throne with Polynices. Her failure to reconcile her sons led to their mutual destruction and her own suicide over their bodies.

• Tiresias

  In Euripides' Phoenician Women, Tiresias prophesied that Thebes could only be saved if Creon's son Menoeceus was sacrificed. Eteocles relied on the blind seer's counsel during the siege by the Seven.