Before the Trojan War, there was the Theban War.
To the heroes beneath the walls of Troy, the heroes of the Theban War were peerless and unattainable role models.
Diomedes, son of Tydeus, so prayed to his goddess Athena:
Hear me, o daughter of Zeus! Stand by me, as you had once stood by my father, divine Tydeus, when he went to Thebes!
But god-like King Agamemnon jeered him:
Woe to thee, son of brave Tydeus, the horse-tamer! Why do you tremble with fear? Why do you glance around, looking for a route of escape? Your father Tydeus was not wont to retreat in fear when he led bronze-clad Argives against the walls of Thebes!
What was the Theban War? Who fought it? What remains of Homer’s epics which told its story? What can archeology tell us? And what does the story of the myth itself tell us about us and our sense of cultural tradition?
This book carries a special significance for me. Many years ago, on a motorcycle trip through some remote part of Laos, I found its dog-eared copy at a guest house where a Krawczuk reader had once left it. I read it in a delirium of pleasure, and when I returned home, I translated it for my wife to read.
This edition features reproductions of the gorgeous woodcuts by Adolfo de Carolis made for the 1929 edition of Ettore Romagnoli’s translation of Oedipus King by Sophocles.
Pick up this book today and escape into… intelligent pleasure.
[acf field=””]
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.