The Seven Against Thebes. United Kingdom: University Press, 1908.
The Mediceus Manuscript (Laurentianus 32.9): Housed in the Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana in Florence, this 10th-century codex is the unique source for the text of Seven Against Thebes.
Aeschylus. Seven Against Thebes. Translated by David Grene. In Aeschylus I: The Persians, The Seven Against Thebes, The Suppliant Maidens, Prometheus Bound, edited by David Greene, Richmond Lattimore, Mark Griffith, and Glenn W. Most. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013.
Loeb Classical Library (Modern)
Aeschylus. Persians. Seven against Thebes. Suppliant Maidens. Prometheus Bound. Edited and translated by Alan H. Sommerstein. Loeb Classical Library 145. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009.
Loeb Classical Library (Historical)
Aeschylus. Seven against Thebes. Translated by Herbert Weir Smyth. Loeb Classical Library 145. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926.
Oxford University Press
Aeschylus. Seven against Thebes. Translated by Anthony Hecht and Helen H. Bacon. Greek Tragedy in New Translations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Small, Jocelyn Penny. The Parallel Worlds of Classical Art and Text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Small examines how the myth of the Seven Against Thebes was treated independently by artists and poets, focusing on the differences between the textual narrative and visual iconography on pottery.
Berman, Daniel W. Myth, Travel, and Memory in City-State Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
This work includes an art-historical analysis of the “Seven Gates of Thebes” as both a literary trope in Aeschylus and a physical reality in the archaeological record of the city’s fortifications.
Zeitlin, Froma I. Under the Sign of the Shield: Semiotics and Aeschylus’ Seven Against Thebes. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009.
While primarily a literary study, Zeitlin provides an extensive analysis of the “Shield Devices” as visual art objects within the play, linking them to the development of Greek heraldry.
Trendall, A. D., and T. B. L. Webster. Illustrations of Greek Drama. London: Phaidon, 1971.
A foundational art-historical catalog that identifies specific South Italian vase paintings that were directly inspired by performances of Aeschylus’s Seven Against Thebes.
On the Featured Image
The Vix Krater. c. 530–525 BCE. Bronze, height: 1.64 m, weight: 208.6 kg. Musée du Pays Châtillonnais – Trésor de Vix, Châtillon-sur-Seine.
Museum Location and Provenance
The krater is the centerpiece of the Musée du Pays Châtillonnais – Trésor de Vix (Inv. no. 53.1.1) in Châtillon-sur-Seine, France. It was discovered on January 6, 1953, by Maurice Moisson and René Joffroy in the tomb of the “Lady of Vix” (or the Vix Princess), located at the foot of Mont Lassois in northern Burgundy. The tomb was a level tumulus that remained inviolate until its modern excavation. The vessel is believed to have originated in a Corinthian-Greek workshop in Southern Italy (Magna Graecia) before being transported through trade networks to the Celtic elite.
These selections by art historians analyze the krater’s iconography, its role in the Mediterranean wine trade, and its stylistic relationship to Greek and Celtic material culture:
Rolley, Claude. La Tombe princière de Vix. Paris: Picard, 2003.
Rolley, the former director of the Vix excavations, provides the definitive art-historical monograph on the tomb and the krater, detailing its manufacture, repair history, and the Greek stylistic origins of its hoplite frieze.
Miller, Margaret C. “The Vix Krater and the Greek Wine Trade.” In Athens and Persia in the Fifth Century BC: A Study in Cultural Receptivity, 124–135. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Miller contextualizes the krater as a “monument to expansion,” analyzing the visual language of the bronze reliefs and how such massive luxury objects facilitated cultural exchange between the Greek and Celtic worlds.
Joffroy, René. Le Trésor de Vix (Côte-d’Or). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1954.
The original excavation report by the archaeologist who discovered the site, providing the first formal descriptions and photographs of the krater’s state at the time of discovery.
Stibbe, Conrad M. “The Vix Krater: A Laconian Product?” Bollettino d’Arte 64 (1989): 1–15.
This scholarly article debates the regional origin of the vessel, using a comparative art-historical approach to weigh the evidence for a Laconian (Spartan) vs. Corinthian or South Italian workshop.
Campanian Neck-Amphora (Storage Jar with Kapaneus). c. 340 BCE. Attributed to the Caivano Painter. Terracotta, 63.5 × 24.9 cm. J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles. 92.AE.86
Campanian Neck-Amphora (Accession No. 92.AE.86) held at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa in Malibu, California. While the shape is characteristic of workshops in Capua (Campania, South Italy), it has been in the Getty collection since its acquisition in 1992. The vessel was previously part of a private collection in Geneva, Switzerland. It is attributed to the Caivano Painter, an artist active between 340 and 330 BCE.
Taplin, Oliver. Pots & Plays: Interactions between Tragedy and Greek Vase-Painting in the Fourth Century B.C. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2007.
Taplin, a leading authority on the intersection of drama and art, provides an extensive analysis of the Getty amphora (pp. 266–67), questioning whether the depiction of Kapaneus’s hubris was a direct response to Aeschylus’s theatrical performance or a broader mythological tradition.
Oakley, John H. The Greek Vase: Art of the Storyteller. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2013.
Oakley uses the Getty amphora to illustrate the “narrative” techniques of South Italian potters, specifically how the Caivano Painter captures the moment of divine intervention (Zeus’s thunderbolt) in the Siege of Thebes.
Krauskopf, Ingrid. “Kapaneus.” In Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC) V, 952–963. Zurich: Artemis Verlag, 1990.
Small, Jocelyn Penny. The Parallel Worlds of Classical Art and Text. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Small examines the “Capua” style and the specific iconographic choices made by Campanian artists when translating epic and tragic themes into visual media, providing essential context for the Getty storage jar.
