Antiquities Exhibits

Adrastus was a king of Argos, and leader of the Seven against Thebes. He was said to be the founder of the Nemean Games, had hero cults at Sicyon, Megara, and Colonus, and was depicted in works of art from as early as the 6th century BCE.  Adrastus is mentioned as early as Homer's Iliad,  figures prominently in the poetry of Pindar, and is a main character in Euripides' The Suppliants. From the lyric poets Bacchylides and Pindar we first hear that Adrastus was the son of Talaus, who according to Apollonius of Rhodes was an Argonaut.  Adrastus was the owner of the fabulously fast horse Arion, who was the offspring of Poseidon and Demeter when they mated in horse form. Adrastus was given Arion by Heracles, and the horse saved Adrastus' life during the war of the Seven against Thebes, when all the other champions of the expedition were killed. The war of the Seven against Thebes resulted from a quarrel between Oedipus' sons Polynices and Eteocles over the kingship of Thebe...

In mythology, Capaneus was a highly skilled warrior of immense strength and body size.  Unfortunately, he was also notorious for his extreme arrogance.  He was a prominent character in the ancient play "Seven Against Thebes" by Aeschylus in which he stood at the wall of Thebes and shouted that Zeus himself could not stop him from invading it.  While  mounting a siege ladder, Zeus struck and killed Capaneus with a thunderbolt for his blatant hubris.  The flawed hero also appears in the plays "The Suppliants" and "The Phoenician Women" by Euripides and in works by the Roman poet Statius. In Dante's "Inferno", Capaneus has been condemned to the seventh circle of hell where he lies supine on a plain of burning sand while fire rains down on him.  He continues to curse Jove (Jupiter) even though his pain increases with each outburst. Etruscan bronze relief of a collapsing armed figure thought to be Capaneus 500-450 BCE courtesy of the Metropolitan ...