Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Adrastus.
The gallery
The Seven Chiefs against Thebes
Angélique Mongez, 1826
Salon canvas (Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers, MBA J 140): Adrastus and the six champions swear over a black bull before Thebes, vowing to restore Polynices. Mongez's 1827 livret names Adraste as the Argive king who gathers Tydeus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Hippomedon and Parthenopaeus for the doomed march.
Adrastos in His Chariot (Attic amphoriskos, MET 19.192.44)
Unknown (Attic red-figure painter), c. 420 BC
Attic red-figure amphoriskos in the Metropolitan Museum (Rogers Fund, 1919; inv. 19.192.44): Adrastos, king of Argos, drives his chariot with his name inscribed on the vase. Classical pottery gives the leader of the Seven a labelled portrait — the host who married his daughters to Polynices and Tydeus and led the Argive army to Thebes.
The Oath of the Seven Chiefs
Unknown (Project Gutenberg plate after classical tradition), 1879 (print)
Nineteenth-century book plate of the Seven swearing before Thebes — the covenant Adrastus seals as Argive king and father-in-law of Polynices. Popular illustration keeps Adrastus at the centre of the Theban war's opening rite, the oath that Aeschylus and Statius both stage.
The Oath of the Seven Chiefs against Thebes
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, c. 1800
Neoclassical drawing in the Cleveland Museum of Art (2000.71): the Seven swear their pact before Thebes under Adrastus' command. Girodet freezes the Argive king's war-band at the altar — the oath that binds Polynices' allies and opens the campaign Adrastus alone will survive.
In play
Seven Against Thebes
Aeschylus
Aeschylus stages the Argive assault Adrastus leads for Polynices — the king of Argos whose seven champions die at the seven gates.
The Suppliants
Euripides
Euripides brings Adrastus to Athens as a broken suppliant: the Argive king who lost his army and begs Theseus to bury the Seven.
Thebaid
Statius
Statius' epic fills the war Adrastus hosted: Tydeus and Polynices under his roof, the march on Thebes, and the Argive defeat that still names him.