[2]
But Amphiaraus, son of Oicles, being a seer and foreseeing that all who joined in the
expedition except Adrastus were destined to perish, shrank from it himself and discouraged
the rest. However, Polynices went to Iphis, son of Alector, and begged to know how
Amphiaraus could be compelled to go to the war. He answered that it could be
done if Eriphyle got the necklace.1 Now Amphiaraus had forbidden Eriphyle to accept gifts from
Polynices; but Polynices gave her the necklace and begged her to persuade Amphiaraus to go
to the war; for the decision lay with her, because once, when a difference arose between
him and Adrastus, he had made it up with him and sworn to let Eriphyle decide any future
dispute he might have with Adrastus.2 Accordingly, when war was to be made on Thebes, and the measure was advocated by Adrastus and opposed by
Amphiaraus, Eriphyle accepted the necklace and persuaded him to march with Adrastus. Thus
forced to go to the war, Amphiaraus laid his commands on his sons, that, when they were
grown up, they should slay their mother and march against Thebes.
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1 For the story of the treachery of Eriphyle to her husband Amphiaraus, see also Diod. 4.65.5ff.; Paus. 5.17.7ff.; Paus. 9.41.2; Scholiast on Hom. Od. 11.326 （who refers to Asclepiades as his authority）; Hyginus, Fab. 73; Scriptores rerum mythicarum Latini, ed. Bode, i. p. 49 (First Vatican Mythographer 152). The story is alluded to but not told by Hom. Od. 11.326ff.; Hom. Od. 15.247; Soph. Elec. 836ff.）, and Hor. Carm. 3.16.11-13. Sophocles wrote a tragedy Eriphyle, which was perhaps the same as his Epigoni. See The Fragments of Sophocles, ed. A. C. Pearson, vol. i. pp. 129ff.
2 Compare Diod. 4.65.6; Scholiast on Hom. Od. xi.326; Scholiast on Pind. N. 9.13(30). As the sister of Adrastus （see above, Apollod. 1.9.13） and the wife of Amphiaraus, the traitress Eriphyle might naturally seem well qualified to act as arbiter between them.
Apollodorus. Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921. Includes Frazer's notes.
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