About the work
Aeschylus wrote "Seven against Thebes" as the last and only fully surviving part of his Theban trilogy, which follows the myth cycle around Oedipus; the lost first two parts were titled Laius and Oedipus. With the trilogy, Aeschylus won first prize at the tragedy competition of the Dionysia in Athens in 467 BC.
Plot
After their father Oedipus's curse, the brothers Eteocles and Polynices are to share the rule of Thebes in alternating years; when Eteocles refuses to cede power, Polynices marches against the city with six allied champions. At each of the seven city gates, an attacker faces a Theban defender; the final pairing sets the two feuding brothers against each other. They kill one another in single combat, but Thebes is saved from conquest.
Cultural significance
By pairing seven champions with seven city gates, the play decisively shaped the later transmission of the myth and influenced, among others, Sophocles's "Antigone" as well as works by Euripides and the Roman poet Statius.