Tydeus 2 left his country
Calydon, after
committing a crime, and came to
Argos where he married one
of the king's daughters. Yet this new position
involved him in the foreign war that was his end.
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Parents.
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Tydeus 2's father was King Oeneus 2 of
Calydon, the man who
assembled the
CALYDONIAN
HUNTERS in order to have corrected through them
his own negligence towards a goddess; but it is
uncertain who his mother was. For some say that
after Althaea's death (who hanged herself after
having caused the death of her son
Meleager) Oeneus 2
married Periboea 5, daughter of Hipponous 1,
whereas others say that he, by the will of
Zeus, fell in love with his
own daughter Gorge 2; one of these two women then
was Tydeus 2's mother.
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Exile.
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When Tydeus 2 became a young man he was forced
to leave his country and go into exile for having
murdered one man, either his own uncle Alcathous 1
or his brother Olenias, or many men, the sons of
Melas 1 and cousins of Tydeus 2 who had plotted
against Oeneus 2: Pheneus, Euryalus 4, Hyperlaus,
Antiochus 2, Eumedes 2, Sternops, Xanthippus 2, and
Sthenelaus 1. Whatever the crime was Tydeus 2's
uncle Agrius 3, who on a later occasion plotted
against Oeneus 2 and deposed him, now attempted to
prosecute Tydeus 2, who fled to
Argos.
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Meeting with another exile.
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In the meantime
Oedipus' son Polynices,
betrayed and banished from
Thebes by his brother
Eteocles 1 came to this same city of
Argos. And on his arrival
by night to the palace of King
Adrastus 1 he met
Tydeus 2, who had fled from
Calydon, and both
engaged in a fight, waking up with their noises the
king who parted them. Some say that
Adrastus 1 compared
them to wild beasts because they came to blows
about the bed. But others say that when
Adrastus 1, after
letting them into his palace, examined the boar and
lion in their shields (for Polynices adorned it
with a lion and Tydeus 2 with a boar; although some
have said that there was "a
lion's skin with shaggy mane" upon Tydeus
2's shield [Euripides, Phoenicia Women 1120] ) he
remembered the words of a seer who had told him to
yoke his daughters in marriage to a boar and a
lion.
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The great fortune of
Adrastus 1.
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And since Adrastus
1 was a man of omens and believed, not only
that these come from heaven, but also that they are
easy to understand, he, interpreting the seer's
words the best he could, thought that these two
gentlemen were a gift from the gods, and that they
had come to aid his work. That is why he exclaimed
in happiness:
"I have found,
O Fortune, that the gods are gods
indeed." [Adrastus
1. Statius, Thebaid 1.510]
...and decided to marry the two exiles to his
daughters.
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Marriage and war.
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This is how Tydeus 2 and Polynices, who had
started the rainy evening not knowing where they
would sleep, saw themselves resting among high
cushions in couches arrayed with purple and
embroidery of gold. And already the day after the
king offered them his daughters as wives, at the
same time promising that he would restore them both
to their native lands, Polynices first. In this
manner Tydeus 2 married
Adrastus 1's daughter
Deipyle, and engaged himself in the army of the
SEVEN AGAINST
THEBES.
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The army at Nemea.
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Since an attempt to reconciliation between the
Theban brothers failed, the army of the
SEVEN advanced to
Nemea where they, being scorched by thirst, sought
for water. King of Nemea was at the time Lycurgus 3
(son of Pheres 1, son of Cretheus 1, son of
Aeolus 1, son of Hellen
1, son of Deucalion
1, the man who survived
The Flood). Lycurgus 3,
who some call Lycus 11, was father of the child
Opheltes 1, and in charge of this child was
Hypsipyle, his nurse. This Hypsipyle had been Queen
of the Lemnian women but was afterwards sold into
slavery by them, the reason being that, when the
Lemnian women decided to kill their husbands and
all men in Lemnos because
of their having taken Thracian wives, Hypsipyle
secretly spared her father. But this was not yet
public when the
ARGONAUTS arrived to
Lemnos, and
Jason, their captain, fell
in love with her and had children by her. One of
them, Euneus 1, became later King of
Lemnos, and is known for
having sent ships from the island with cargoes of
wine for the Achaeans
during the Trojan War.
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Tydeus 2 saves Hypsipyle
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But now, years after the expedition of the
ARGONAUTS and years
before the Trojan War,
when the SEVEN came
to Nemea looking for water, Hypsipyle showed them
the way to a spring, and in doing so she left
behind the little prince Opheltes 1, who was
devoured by a dragon. When Lycurgus 3 learned what
had happened to his son and wished to execute
Hypsipyle on the spot, it was Tydeus 2 who saved
her who had given water to the army. And short
after (for these coincidences occur) Hypsipyle's
sons Euneus 1 and Thoas 9, arriving to Nemea in
search for their mother, put and end to their long
separation.
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Tydeus 2 ambassador.
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After celebrating the Nemean games in honor of
the dead prince, the army came to Cithaeron (the
mountain between Boeotia and Attica) whence Tydeus
2 was sent as ambassador to
Thebes to tell Eteocles 1
to cede the kingdom to Polynices as he had
previously agreed with his brother; for their
covenant was that each should rule alternately for
one year at a time. So Tydeus 2, holding the
ambassador's branch of olive at the palace at
Thebes, told King
Eteocles 1:
"...it were
more right that envoys should go hence to your
brother, now that your year is finished, and that
you in due course should put off your state and
contentedly leave your throne.."
and making no attempt to soft diplomacy he
added:
"But since
your darling passion is to reign, and power exerts
its flattering charm, we summon you...Set a term to
your prosperity...I warn you, unlearn of your own
will the joys of ruling, and in patient exile merit
your return." [Tydeus 2 to Eteocles 1.
Statius, Thebaid 2.393ff.]
This speech was not what Eteocles 1 could find
persuasive, but then neither brother nor mother nor
covenant had changed his determination:
"The fortune
that is my right, the sceptre that due privilege of
years has assigned me, I hold, and will hold long."
[Eteocles 1 to Tydeus 2. Statius, Thebaid
2.425]
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The ambush.
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And since the speeches in this embassy soon
turned into insults and threats Tydeus 2 hasted
away hurling from him the branch of olive. It was
then that Eteocles 1 sent a band of fifty soldiers
after him to lay an ambush and kill Tydeus 2. Among
these were Acamas 6, Chromis 5, Chthonius 5, Cydon
3, Deilochus 1, Dorylas 3, Gyas 3, Halys 3, Lampus
6, Lycophontes 2, Menoetes 7, Pentheus 2, Periphas
9, Phaedimus 2, Phegeus 5, Phylleus, Polyphontes 2,
and Theron 3; all these men Tydeus 2 slew, sparing
only Maeon 1 (son of Haemon 1 and
Antigone 2) so that he
should bear testimony to the Thebans letting them
know that all that had taken part in the ambush had
perished.
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Prophecy fulfilled.
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As this embassy had no effect the army
approached the walls of
Thebes and each commander
was stationed in front of each of the seven gates,
with the whole host behind them. It is not clear
which gate Tydeus 2 assailed, whether it was the
Crenidian, or the Homoloidian, or the Proetidian.
In any case he got killed; for it had been
prophesied that all who joined
Adrastus 1 against
Thebes would perish.
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Lost immortality.
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So after having killed many warriors --among
which Aon, Atys 2 (bethrothed from childhood to
Oedipus' daughter Ismene
2), Chromis 8, Clonius 5, Deilochus 2, Hippotades,
Idas 8 (from Onchestus), the charioteer Phlegyas 5,
Pholus 3, Prothous 7, Pterelas 3, and Thoas 10--
Tydeus 2 also killed Ismene 2 (daughter of
Oedipus), at
Athena's instigation,
while she was having intercourse with Theoclymenus
4.
And last he killed Melanippus 1, but was himself
mortally wounded by him in the belly. As Tydeus 2
lay almost dead, Athena
approached with a medicine she had received from
Zeus, and by which she
intended to make him immortal. But then Amphiaraus
cut off the head of Melanippus 1 and gave it to
Tydeus 2, who opened it and gulped up the brains.
So when Athena saw his
barbarian behaviour, she withheld the intended
privilege, and that is why Tydeus 2, although
remembered, is not counted among the immortals,
remembrance being one thing and immortality
another.
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Another with identical name.
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Tydeus 1 is an Argonaut. One mythographer has
counted one Tydeus of Olenus in Aetolia among the
ARGONAUTS. Yet this
Tydeus, despite his name and country of origin,
could hardly be the same as the better known
Tydeus, who is the son of Oeneus 2, the father of
Diomedes 2, and the
man who perished in the war of the
SEVEN AGAINST
THEBES. For Oeneus 2 begot Tydeus after the
death of his first wife Althaea, who killed herself
after having caused the death of their son
Meleager, himself an
Argonaut. So if Tydeus was born after the death of
Meleager, who was an
Argonaut, he could not have accompanied his brother
in that same expedition.
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