τὸ Θήβης ἄστυ. Thebes, the birthplace of Heracles (116), and his early home (510), was a place where some of his children might well find friends. Sophocles has perhaps taken a hint here from his elder contemporary, the logographer Pherecydes, who related that, after the death of Eurystheus, Thebes became the home of the Heracleidae; fr. 39 (Müller Frag. Hist. 1. p. 82) “Ὕλλος δὲ καὶ οἱ ἄλλοι Ἡρακλεῖδαι καὶ οἱ σὺν αὐτοῖς ἀποθανόντος Εὐρυσθέως κατοικίζονται πάλιν ἐν Θήβαις.—ἂν … μάθοις”: sc. “εἰ πύθοιο”: since he has been so long abroad.
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Sophocles: The Plays and Fragments, with critical notes, commentary, and translation in English prose. Part V: The Trachiniae. Sir Richard C. Jebb. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1902.
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