CREON, in Greek fable, son of Lycaethus, king of Corinth and father of Glauce, who was beloved by Jason, and whose tragical fate he shared. See Jason and Medea.

CREON, in Greek fable, son of Menoeceus, became king of Thebes at the death of Laius, the husband of his daughter Jocasta. Thebes was then trembling before the cruelty of the Sphinx, and Creon offered his crown and his daughter to whoever should solve the fatal enigma proposed by the monster. Oedipus, the son of Laius, ignorant of his parentage (see Oedipus), having accomplished the task, received the reward, and married Jocasta, his mother. By her he had two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, who mutually agreed after their father’s death to reign in alternate years. Eteocles first ascended the throne, being the elder, but at the appointed time he refused to resign, and his brother attacked him at the head of an army of Argives. The war was to be decided by a single combat between the brothers, but both fell. Creon, now resuming the government during the nonage of Leodamus, the son of Eteocles, commanded that the Argives, and above all Polynices, the cause of all the bloodshed, should not receive the rites of sepulture, and that any one who infringed this decree should be buried alive. Antigone, the sister of Polynices, refused to obey, and sprinkled dust upon her brother’s corpse. The threatened penalty was inflicted; but Creon’s crime did not escape unpunished. . His son, Haemon, the lover of Antigone, killed himself on her grave; and Thebes was attacked by Theseus, by whose hand Creon fell. See Antigone.