INTRODUCTION.
The trilogy to which this drama belonged was represented B.C. 467, five years after[1] "The Persians," and consisted, as we learn from the Didascalia given in the Medicean manuscript, of Laios, Œdipus, and "The Seven against Thebes," followed by the Satyric drama of the Sphinx. It has been appropriately styled the dramatic epos of the House of Labdacos, for though the conflicting emotions in the soul of Eteocles are portrayed with true tragic insight, yet in "The Seven," as in "The Persians," narrative so far preponderates over action as to render the treatment of their respective subjects epic rather than dramatic.
In this, as in the other dramas of Æschylus, the aim of the poet is to vindicate the divine government, and to exhibit the ultimate triumph of order and justice. The principle more especially emphasized, that of divine retribution—"the key-stone of the universal order"—was embodied by the Greeks in the word Nemesis: passing from the domain of conscience, it became in later times a divinity, and has been aptly characterized by Bunsen as the "Muse of Justice." In accordance with her teaching, the eternal laws can
