the sons and descendants of the Grecian heroes who were killed in the first Theban war. The war of the Epigoni is famous in ancient history. It was undertaken ten years after the first Theban war. The sons of those who had perished in that contest resolved to avenge the death of their fathers, and marched against Thebes, under the command of Thersander, or, according to others, of Alcmenon the son of Amphiarous, about 1307 years B.C. The Argives were assisted by the Corinthians and the people of Messenia, Arcadia, and Megara. The Thebans had engaged all their neighbours in their quarrel, as in one common cause. The two hostile armies met on the banks of the Glissas, and a battle ensued. The combat was obstinate and bloody; but victory declared for the Epigoni, and some of the Thebans fled to Illyricum with Leodamas their general, whilst others retired into Thebes, where they were soon afterwards besieged and forced to surrender. In this war Egieleus was the only person of note who was killed; whereas in the former war his father Adrastus had been the only one of the seven who escaped alive. This whole war, as Pausanias observes, was written in verse; and Callinus, who quotes some of the verses, ascribes them to Homer—an opinion which has been adopted by many writers.

"For my part," continues the geographer, "I own that, next to the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer, I have never seen a finer poem." The names of the Epigoni are not uniformly the same in the various traditions connected with them; but the most received accounts give them as follows:—Egieleus, Alcmenon, Diomede, Euryalus, Promachus, Sthenelus, and Thersander. The Epigoniad of Wilkie is a modern poetical celebration of the same story. The descendants of the veteran Macedonians, who served under Alexander the Great, and who had children by Asiatic women, were also called Epigoni.