Καπανευς
One of the Argive princes who marched against Thebes in the expedition of the Seven Chiefs; he himself was one of the Seven (see AMPHIARUS and ADRASTUS). Capaneus was the son of Hipponous, a man of violence and a giant in size. He had no fear of the gods and, at the time of the first attack on Thebes, he rushed forward impelled by his resolve to burn it, but the thunderbolt sent by Zeus killed him just as he was about to scale the Theban walls. His wife Evadne threw herself on the funeral-pyre which consumed his body. Sthenelus, who took part in the Trojan War was his son.
{E2 DICTIONARY OF CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY}
Table of Sources
- Hom. Il. 2, 564; 4, 403
- Stat. Theb. 3, 598ff.; 4, 165ff.; 6, 731ff.; 10, 827ff.
- Aeschylus, Sept. 422ff.
- Sophocles, OC 1319; Ant. 134ff.
- Euripides, Phoen. 1129; 1172; Suppl. 496ff.; LA 246
- Paus. 9, 8, 7
- Apollod. Bibl. 3, 6, 3; 3, 6, 7; 3, 7, 1
- Hyg. Fab. 70f
- Ovid, Met. 9, 404
- Diod. Sic. 4, 65, 8