ETEOCLES, a mythical king of Thebes, son of Oedipus and Jocasta. He and his brother Polynices were cursed by their father for shutting him up in a prison; and in order to prevent the fulfilment of his prayer that they might engage in fratricidal combat for his throne, they resolved to reign alternately, each for a year. Eteocles as the elder ascended the throne first, but at the expiry of the year he refused to surrender the throne to Polynices. The latter therefore, with the aid of Adrastus, king of Argos, whose daughter he had married, headed the famous expedition of the Seven against Thebes. After a series of unavailing skirmishes between the rival forces, the two brothers met in single combat, and both were slain. The Theban rulers decreed that only Eteocles should receive the honour of burial, and that the body of Polynices should be cast out to the dogs and birds, but notwithstanding the decree, the burial rite was performed to Polynices by his sister Antigone. The fate of Eteocles and Polynices forms the subject of Aeschylus’s tragedy, The Seven against Thelms, and of Euripides’s Phoenissoe.