“prize equality that ever linketh friend to friend, city to city, and allies to each other; for equality is man’s natural law”
~ ‘The Phoenician Maidens’ by Euripides (Edward P. Coleridge translation. GB5 - p. 382)
The play opens with a monologue from Jocasta, in front of the royal palace in Thebes, setting the context. She talks about her late husband Laius’ lineage from Cadmus. Cadmus → Polydore → Labdacus → Laius. She says they didn’t have a child for a long time and prayed to Apollo, who warned them that any son born to them would kill Laius. But Laius impregnated Jocasta in a drunken fit, and they had a baby (Oedipus). Fearing the prophecy, Laius had his ankles pierced and gave him to shepherds to have him killed. But they gave him to Polybus, who raised him as his son. After he grew up, he ended up killing Laius on the road due to a dispute over the right of way, not knowing that the man he killed was his biological father. Later, after solving the Sphinx’s riddle, Oedipus became king and married Jocasta, his mother. They had four children - Eteocles, Polynices, Ismene, and Antigone. Oedipus blinds himself once he finds out the truth. There is a conflict in the rule of succession to resolve that both sons agree to share power by ruling Thebes alternatively every year. Eteocles takes power first and when Polynices’ turn comes, he refuses to give the power and banishes Polynices.
Polynices is given refuge in Argos. He takes the help of Argive King Adrastus to seek justice. Adrastus gathers an army to help Polynices, who is also his son-in-law. They come to Thebes to attack it. Polynices first enters the city under a truce to talk to his mother, Jocasta. She tries to persuade him to withdraw and Polynices says that if he is given the power to rule Thebes as agreed upon earlier, he would withdraw. She calls Eteocles and asks him to heed Polynices’ wishes. But Eteocles does not agree. Teiresias, the blind prophet, says that Thebes will be destroyed by the marching army and can only be saved by Menoeceus’ (Creon’s son)’s death. Creon is aghast, but Menoeceus sacrifices himself for the city.