Quoted By:
“Tell me what you think of the princes, Amphiarus?” you ask. Amphiarus shrugs at your request, but replies:
“I’ve always appreciated your frankness, Hippomedon – why speak in circles? You could not be more different than Polynices - a man who believes that his tongue is most powerful than any spear, and that it can lay low the walls that Amphion built. He is an overconfident rooster, strutting about the farmyard. Your uncle has always felt his lack of a son keenly, although he loves his daughters dearly, as you well know. Some in the Argive court say he is too fond of his nephews… But now Polynices plays on your uncle’s sensibilities, and claims to be the son he never had. Who can say whether the act is real and his affection true? Let us put aside for a moment this conflict before us, since I haven’t the slightest idea of its outcome – you would be the better judge than I. Assume that the war is won, and that Polynices installed upon the throne of Thebes, and that Adrastus is successfully in creating a league of power to rival the Atreides – what then? Will Polynices upset the balance?”
“Balance?” you ask, curiously. Amphiarus continues thoughtfully -
“The Oath of Tyndareus – much of the peace of Hellas is bound up between the marriage of Menelaus and Helen. Half the Hellenic nobility attempted to win her hand from her father, Tyndareus, including my own son, Amphilochus, although I told him it was a hopeless endeavor at the time. Your boorish cousin Capaneus traveled to Sparta as well, if you might recall. At any rate, young Odysseus Laertides, barely a man, collected the kings and princes together and induced them to swear strong oaths to honor that marriage – and taking the second-place prize in the process, Penelope of Sparta. If any man breaks that covenant and removes Helen from Sparta, the oathkeepers are bound to war together, to bring her back to Menelaus.” Ah, you remember this now – you had been so bound up in the thralls of your own new marriage to Euanippe several years ago that the news of this broader alliance had been quickly forgotten.
“Polynices is a man of ambition, Hippomedon, and his tongue may be equal to Odysseus – once the city of Cadmus is his to rule, how long until he decides that the most beautiful woman in Hellas ought to be his wife? He has sworn no oath – the Thebans did not send a delegation to Sparta, and Menelaus is broadly considered to be a buffoon propped up by his brother. Polynices may decide he is more deserving of Zeus’ daughter.”
“And so he may spark another war between the nations,” you say, following Amphiarus’ logic.
>cont
