Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Tydeus.
The gallery
Tydeus Killing Ismene (Corinthian black-figure amphora E 640)
The Tydeus Painter (attributed), c. 560 BC
This Corinthian black-figure neck amphora, the name-vase of the so-called Tydeus Painter, shows the Aetolian hero Tydeus seizing the Theban princess Ismene by the hair as he drives his sword into her, a brutal episode preserved only in the early Theban epic tradition. Standing about 32 cm tall, it entered the Louvre with the Campana Collection in 1861 (Department of Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities, inv. E 640) and is among the earliest surviving images naming Tydeus, the comrade of Polynices among the Seven against Thebes and father of Diomedes.
Tydeus, Hippomedon and Parthenopaeus (engraving of the Seven against Thebes)
Philippe-Auguste Hennequin, early 19th century
A nineteenth-century engraving after Philippe-Auguste Hennequin grouping three of the doomed champions of the Seven against Thebes, with the warrior Tydeus among them. Exiled from Calydon for kindred blood and wed to Adrastus' daughter Deipyle at Argos, Tydeus marched with Polynices against Thebes, where he won fame for his single-handed prowess before falling to the wound dealt by Melanippus. The print belongs to the Neoclassical revival of the Theban saga and survives in a private collection.
Tydeus fighting the soldiers of Eteocles
N. Vasiliev (illustration in A. Ryabinin, 'Riddle of the Sphinx'), 2019
A modern book illustration depicting Tydeus' celebrated aristeia at Thebes, where, sent as Argos' envoy, he challenged and overcame the Cadmeans in feats of strength and then cut down an ambush of fifty Theban youths laid by Eteocles, sparing only Maeon at the gods' bidding (Homer, Iliad 4). Drawn by N. Vasiliev for A. Ryabinin's mythological retelling 'Riddle of the Sphinx' (Saint Petersburg, 2019), it renders the favorite of Athena as the heroic father against whom his son Diomedes would forever be measured.