Epigoni was an early Greek epic, a sequel to the Thebaid

Thebaid (Greek poem)

The Thebaid or Thebais is an Ancient Greek epic poem of uncertain authorship sometimes attributed by early writers to Homer. It told the story of the war between the brothers Eteocles and Polynices, and was regarded as forming part of a Theban Cycle. Only fragments of the text...

and therefore grouped in the Theban cycle

Theban Cycle

The Theban Cycle is a collection of four lost epics of ancient Greek literature which related the mythical history of the Boeotian city of Thebes...

. Some ancient authors seem to have considered it a part of the Thebaid and not a separate poem.

According to one source the epic extended to 7,000 lines of verse. It told the story of the last battle for Thebes

Thebes, Greece

Thebes is a city in Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. It played an important role in Greek myth, as the site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus and others...

 by the Epigoni

Epigoni

In Greek mythology, Epigoni are the sons of the Argive heroes who had fought and been killed in the first Theban war, the subject of the Greek Thebaid, in which Polynices and six allies attacked Thebes because Polynices' brother, Eteocles, refused to give up the throne as promised...

 ("the progeny, the next generation"), the children of the heroes who had previously fought for the city. Only the first line is now known:

Now, Muses, let us begin to sing of younger men …

Additional references, without verbal quotations, suggest that the myth of the death of Procris

Procris

In Greek mythology, Procris was the daughter of Erechtheus, king of Athens and his wife, Praxithea. She married Cephalus, the son of Deioneus. Procris had at least two sisters, Creusa and Orithyia...

 and the story of Teiresias's daughter Manto

Manto (mythology)

There are several distinct figures in Greek mythology named Manto, the most prominent being the daughter of Tiresias. The name Manto derives from Ancient Greek Mantis, "seer, prophet" .-Daughter of Tiresias:...

 formed part of the Epigoni.

The epic was sometimes ascribed to Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

, but Herodotus

Herodotus

Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...

 doubted this attribution. According to the Scholia on Aristophanes

Aristophanes

Aristophanes , son of Philippus, of the deme Cydathenaus, was a comic playwright of ancient Athens. Eleven of his forty plays survive virtually complete...

 there was an alternative attribution to "Antimachus". This presumably means Antimachus of Teos

Antimachus of Teos

Antimachus of Teos was an early Greek epic poet. According to Plutarch, he observed an eclipse of the sun in 753 BC, the same year in which Rome was founded. The epic Epigoni, a sequel to the legend of Thebes, was apparently sometimes ascribed to Antimachus of Teos. However, confusion is possible...

, and for this reason another verse line attributed without title to Antimachus of Teos is conjecturally thought to belong to the Epigoni. An alternative explanation for the naming of Antimachus here would be that the later epic poet Antimachus of Colophon had been accused of stealing the traditional Epigoni by incorporating its plot in his literary epic Thebais.

The story of the Epigoni was afterwards told again in the form of a tragedy by Sophocles

Sophocles

Sophocles is one of three ancient Greek tragedians whose plays have survived. His first plays were written later than those of Aeschylus, and earlier than or contemporary with those of Euripides...

, Epigoni.

Sources

• West, Martin L. Greek Epic Fragments. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press
  Harvard University Press is a publishing house established on January 13, 1913, as a division of Harvard University, and focused on academic publishing. In 2005, it published 220 new titles. It is a member of the Association of American University Presses. Its current director is William P...
  
  , 2003.