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Seven against Thebes

The Seven against Thebes were seven champions in Greek mythology who made war on Thebes. They were chosen by Adrastus, the king of Argos, to be the captains of an Argive army whose purpose was to restore Oedipus' son Polynices to the Theban throne. Adrastus, although always the leader of the expedition against Thebes, was not always counted as one of the Seven champions. Usually the Seven were Polynices, Tydeus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Parthenopaeus, Hippomedon, and Adrastus or Eteoclus, whenever Adrastus is excluded. They tried and failed to take Thebes, and all but Adrastus died in the attempt.

On their way to Thebes, the Seven stopped at Nemea, where they held funeral games for the infant Opheltes, which became the origin of the Nemean Games. Before arriving at Thebes, Adrastus sent Tydeus on ahead to resolve the dispute through negotiation, which failed. At Thebes, Capaneus was struck down by Zeus' thunderbolt while attempting to scale the city walls. Tydeus was mortally wounded, and although Athena intended to make him immortal, she let him die when she saw him eating the brains of his attacker. Polynices was killed by (and killed) his brother Eteocles, the seer Amphiaraus was swallowed up by the earth, and Adrastus escaped the battlefield on his divine horse Arion. The victorious Thebans refused to allow the burial of the Argive dead, but Theseus marched an Athenian army to Thebes and recovered the bodies of the fallen warriors.

The war of the Seven against Thebes occurred in the generation prior to that of the Trojan War. According to Hesiod's Works and Days, these two wars were the two great events of the fourth age, the age of heroes. The Seven's war against Thebes was the first of two Theban wars. The second Theban war was fought, and won, ten years later by the Seven's sons, the Epigoni.

Polynices and Eteocles

The war of the Seven against Thebes resulted from a quarrel between the brothers Polynices and Eteocles over the kingship of Thebes. Polynices and Eteocles had been cursed by their father Oedipus, the former king of Thebes, to battle over their patrimony. The curse inexorably led to the brothers' quarrel, their killing each other, and the Argive disaster at Thebes.

After Oedipus had vacated the throne, according to some accounts, it was agreed that Eteocles would inherit the throne, and that Polynices would take a share of the household property, while according to a different account, Eteocles forced Polynices into exile. However, in what became the most familiar version of the story, first occurring in Euripides' Phoenician Women, the brothers agreed to share the throne, with each ruling in alternate years, but after the first year Eteocles refused to relinquish the throne.

In the Phoenician Women, Polynices is clearly the hero while Eteocles is the villain. However, in the versions of the story in which Polynices agreed to property in return for relinquishing his right to the throne, he would seem to be to blame for the war. In any case, Eteocles ended up as king, and Polynices in exile.

Army assembled
When Polynices left Thebes he went to Argos where he married Argia, the daughter of Adrastus the king of Argos, and gained the support of his father-in-law for an expedition against Thebes. In a story first encountered in Euripides, we hear that Polynices arrived at Adrastus' palace at night, seeking shelter. He found a place to sleep, but soon after Tydeus, the exiled son of the Calydonian king Oeneus, also arrived seeking shelter, and the two began to fight over the same space. When Adrastus discovered Polynices and Tydeus fighting like wild beasts (or in later accounts when he saw that Polynices wore the hide of a lion and that Tydeus wore the hide of a boar, or that they had those animals on their shields), he remembered an oracle of Apollo that said he should marry his daughters to a lion and a boar. So Adrastus gave his daughters to the two exiled foreign princes, and promised to restore them to their kingdoms, beginning with Polynices.

Adrastus proceeded to assemble a large army to attack Thebes, appointing seven champions to be its leaders. These became known as the Seven against Thebes. One of those chosen, the seer Amphiaraus, had foreseen that the expedition was doomed to fail, and that all of the champions but Adrastus would die, and so refused to join. But when Polynices bribed Amphiaraus' wife Eriphyle to tell her husband to join the expedition, he was forced to obey because of a promise Amphiaraus had made to allow his wife, who was also Adrastus' sister, to settle any disputes between the two men.

According to the Iliad, Tydeus and Polynices went to Mycenae to recruit allies for the war, but the Mycenaeans, who at first agreed, finally declined because of ill omens sent by Zeus.

Death of Opheltes
As the army of the Seven marched toward Thebes, they passed through Nemea. There they encountered Hypsipyle, the nursemaid of Opheltes, the infant son of Lycurgus. Needing water, the Seven asked Hypsipyle to direct them to a spring. But while doing this she sat Opheltes down, and the unattended child was killed by a serpent. The Seven killed the serpent, and interceded on Hypsipyle's behalf, as she was being threatened with death for her negligence. Amphiaraus, renamed the child Archemorus, meaning the "Beginning of Doom", interpreting the child's death as a harbinger of the Seven's own impending doom at Thebes. The Seven held funeral games in the child's honor, which became the origin of the Nemean Games.

Embassy of Tydeus
As the Argive army was nearing Thebes, Tydeus was sent ahead alone, on an embassy to the city, to try to negotiate a peaceful settlement of the succession dispute. As recounted in the Iliad, Tydeus found the Theban leaders feasting at the house of Eteocles, and challenged them all to many contests, and (with Athena's help) won every one. In anger, fifty Thebans, led by Maeon, Haemon's son, and Polyphontes, Autophonus' son, ambushed Tydeus as he was returning to his army. But Tydeus killed them all, sparing only Maeon, whom he sent home in obedience to the gods.

Assault on Thebes

When the army of the Seven reached Thebes, they proceeded to launch an attack on the city. In a story first attested in Euripides' The Phoenician Women, the seer Teiresias prophesied that Thebes would be saved if Creon's son Menoeceus (previously unknown) sacrificed himself, which he did.

Capaneus impiously boasted that not even Zeus could keep him from burning the city. But, as he was scaling the walls, Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt. Tydeus was mortally wounded by Melanippus, the son of Astacus. A favorite of Athena, the goddess intended to make Tydeus immortal, but the seer Amphiaraus, knowing this, and hating Tydeus, cut off Melanippus' head and gave it to Tydeus, who proceeded to eat the brains of his killer. As was Amphiaraus's intention, Athena was so appalled that she changed her mind and let Tydeus die. Amphiaraus was himself chased from the battlefield by Periclymenus, who had already killed Parthenopaeus. As Amphiaraus was about to be killed by Periclymenus' spear in his back, Zeus intervened, causing the earth to open and swallow up Amphiaraus, along with his chariot and charioteer. At some point in the battle, Polynices and Eteocles met in single combat, and killed each other. According to the mythographer Apollodorus, Eteoclus and Hippomedon were killed by Leades and Ismarus, brothers of Melanippus. All of the Seven perished except Adrastus, who managed to escape, carried from the battlefield by his divine horse Arion.

Burial
According to accounts first occurring in fifth-century BC Greek tragedy, after the failed assault on Thebes, Creon, who with the death of Eteocles became the new ruler of Thebes, forbade the burial of the expeditions' dead. In Sophocles' tragedy Antigone, Polynices' sister Antigone, in defiance of Creon's decree, tries to bury her brother, an action that leads to the deaths of Antigone, and Creon's son Haemon.

Athenian tradition held that Theseus, the king and founder-hero of Athens, either by force or negotiation, recovered the bodies of the Seven at Thebes, and buried them at Eleusis. In Euripides' Suppliants, Theseus agrees to assist Adrastus in recovering the bodies of his fallen comrades, which Theseus does after defeating the Thebans in battle. However, in Aeschylus' earlier lost tragedy Eleusinians, evidently Theseus obtained the bodies through negotiation, the version of the story apparently preferred by the Thebans. According to some accounts Polynices was buried at Thebes, the rest being buried at Eleusis. The Iliad has Tydeus buried at Thebes, while Pindar mentions seven funeral pyres there. In the Suppliants, Capaneus' wife Evadne throws herself on her husband's burning pyre.

The "Seven" champions

Prior to the fifth century BC, the number and names of the "seven" champions is uncertain. Only six names are known for certain, and no specific number. Three of these six were Argives: Adrastus the son of Talaus, Amphiaraus the son of Oicles, and Capaneus the son of Hipponous. The two exiles, Polynices, the son of Oedipus king of Thebes, and Tydeus, the son of Oeneus king of Calydon, were also mentioned by early sources. The sixth, Parthenopaeus, although usually an Arcadian whose mother was Atalanta (as he is in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes), in another tradition (attested as early as Hecataeus) he was the son of Talaus, and thus also an Argive and the brother of Adrastus. Pindar does mention the expedition's dead being burned on seven funeral pyres at Thebes, (an idea Pindar possibly took from the Cyclic Thebaid), however whether seven refers to the number of champions is unclear. According to Pausanias, before Aeschylus the number of champions was greater than seven.

The first certain reference to the number of champions being seven, along with a list of their names, occurs in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes. This list contains all the names known from earlier sources, excluding Adrastus—who although present at the battle, is not considered by Aeschylus to be one of the "Seven"—while adding two new names: Eteoclus and Hippomedon. The same list of names is given in Euripides' The Suppliants (where Eteoclus is said to be the son of Iphis), and Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus (where Hippomedon is said to be the son of Talaus, and so the brother of Adrastus). However, Euripides gives a slightly different list in The Phoenician Women, with Adrastus replacing Eteoclus, and this list will be followed by the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus, the mythographers Apollodorus and Hyginus, and the Latin poet Statius. Hyginus says that Adrastus chose seven generals (including himself) because Thebes had seven gates.

Apollodorus, however, goes on to say that "some" do not count Tydeus and Polynices among the Seven, but include "Eteoclus, son of Iphis, and Mecisteus", a son of Talaus and another brother of Adrastus. Such a list, with Parthenopaeus considered an Argive, would represent an all-Argive seven, and could have reflected either an original Argive version of the story, before foreigners came to be involved, or a later desire, on the part of the Argives, for an exclusively Argive list.

Aeschylus, in Seven Against Thebes, assigns each of the Seven to one of the seven gates of Thebes, as do Euripides in The Phoenician Women, and Apollodorus. While the names of the gates are similar among these sources, there is little agreement with respect to the assignments. Aeschylus further assigns a Theban defender to each gate.

Homer
References to the expedition of the Seven occur as early as Homer's Iliad, in which four of the "seven" champions: Adrastus, Tydeus, Polynices, and Capaneus are mentioned. The Iliad refers to Adrastus as king of Sicyon, the father-in law of Tydeus, and as possessing the divine horse Arion. The only references to the expedition itself are an account of Tydeus and Polynices' recruitment mission to Mycenae, and the embassy of Tydeus to Thebes, plus two more mentions of the embassy, and reports of the deaths of Tydeus and Capaneus at Thebes.

In Book 4, Agamemnon says that Tydeus and Polynices came to Mycenae to recruit additional allies for their war on Thebes. The Mycenaeans agreed to join the expedition, and began assembling an army. But they changed their minds when Zeus sent ill omens. Agamemnon also says that—when Tydeus and Polynices left Mycenae, "and were with deep reeds, that coucheth in the grass" (i.e. had reached the Asopos River in Boetia)—Tydeus was sent alone on an embassy to Thebes. There he found the Thebans feasting at the palace of Eteocles. Tydeus challenged all of them to "feats of strength" and was easily victorious in every one, "such a helper was Athene to him." The Thebans were so angry that they sent fifty men, led by Maeon, the son of Haemon, and Polyphontes, Autophonus' son, to ambush Tyedeus on the way back to his army. Tydeus killed all of these but Maeon, whom he spared and sent home "in obedience to the portents of the gods".

In Book 5, Athena mentions Tydeus' embassy, saying that although she "bade him feast in their halls in peace", Tydeus challenged the Thebans and easily won everything, "so present a helper was I to him." In Book 10, Tydeus' son Diomedes refers to his father's mission, calling Tydeus a "messenger" who brought a "gentle word" to the Thebans, and about the ambush says that Tydeus devised "terrible" deeds, with Athena's help. From Sthenelus the son of Capaneus, and comrade of Diomedes, we hear that at Thebes "of the seven gates", their fathers "perished through their own blind folly". And finally in Book 14, we learn from Diomedes that Tydeus was buried at Thebes.

In Homer's Odyssey, we hear of a fifth champion, Amphiaraus betrayed by his wife Eriphyle. Book 11 mentions the "hateful Eriphyle, who took precious gold as the price of the life of her own lord". While in Book 15 we learn of Amphiaraus, "the rouser of the host", who, though loved by Zeus and Apollo, died at Thebes, "because of a woman's gifts."

Stesichorus, Thebaid, Catalogue of Women, Chest of Kypselos
Besides those found in Homer, there are few surviving references to the Seven, and their war against Thebes, before the fifth century BC. The lyric poet Stesichorus (c. 630 – 555 BC) apparently wrote a poem (now lost) about the war against Thebes. Here the seer Tiresias prophesies a threat to Thebes, and the deaths of the brothers Polynices and Eteocles. Seeking to avoid this dire fate, they agree that the kingship would be determined by lot, with one gaining the throne (Eteocles), and the other gaining all their father's possessions, but forced to leave Thebes (Polynices). Tiresias also says that Polynices is destined to go to Argos where Adrastus will give him his daughter.

The Cyclic Thebaid (early sixth century BC?) was a Greek epic poem whose entire subject was the Seven's Theban war, however only a few fragments have survived. The poem's first line began "Sing, goddess, of thirsty Argos, from where the lords ...". We learn that Polynices and Eteocles, were cursed by their father Oedipus, and so doomed to their fatal dispute, and that, during the battle at Thebes, while all the others perished, Adrastus alone was saved thanks to his horse Arion. There is also evidence for the appearance in the poem of Amphiaraus, his death being lamented by Adrastus, calling him "both a good seer and good at fighting with a spear", and possibly also Tydeus eating Melanippus' brains (fr. 9*). In addition to these four of the Seven, already found in Homer, we hear of a new name, Parthenopaeus, who is said to have been killed by Periclymenus. Parthenopaeus is also mentioned by Hecataeus of Miletus, as being the son of Talaus (and so apparently a brother of Adrastus).

Polynices is named in a fragmentary passage from the c. 6th-century BC Hesiodic Catalogue of Women, where he seems to be receiving aid from someone. According to the geographer Pausanias, the brothers Polynices and Eteocles were depicted fighting each other, in the presence of a Ker (a goddess of death) on the Chest of Kypselos at Olympia (late seventh to early sixth century BC).

Fifth century BC
In contrast to the few early sources, which reveal only scattered traces of the story, in the fifth century BC there are many sources, which taken together complete the story. These include the historians Hellanicus and Pherecydes, the lyric poets Simonides, Bacchylides, and Pindar, and in particular, tragedies from each of the three great tragic poets, Aeschylus (Eleusinians, and Seven Against Thebes), Sophocles (Antigone, and Oedipus at Colonus), and Euripides (Hypsipyle, The Phoenician Women, and The Suppliants).

Hellanicus, Simonides, Bacchylides, and Pherecydes
In an account (similar to that of Stesichorus' above) attributed to Hellanicus (fr. 98 Fowler), Eteocles offered Polynices a choice: rule Thebes, or take a share of the household treasure and leave, and Polynices took the robe and necklace of Harmonia and went into exile. However, according to Pherecydes (fr. 96 Fowler), Eteocles drove Polynices into exile, by force.

Perhaps the earliest surviving reference to the Seven's stop in Nemea, and the death of the infant Opheltes, occurs in a fragment of Simonides (c. 556–468 BC), who says that "they" (the Seven?) mourned the child's death. A more complete account of the event occurs in a mid-fifth-century BC poem by Bacchylides. The poem refers to the Seven as "the heroes with red shields, the best of the Argives", and says that they established the Nemean Games in honor of "Archemorus", whom a "monstrous" serpent had killed. According to Bacchylides, the death was a "sign of the slaughter to come" (i.e. the disaster awaiting at Thebes). He calls the Argive deaths a "powerful fate", which could not be avoided even though Amphiaraus tried to "persuade them to go back", saying that it was hope, rather than good sense, that sent Adrastus and Polynices to Thebes.

The story of Athena's intention to make Tydeus immortal, was known to both Bacchylides (fr. 41 SM) and Pherecydes (fr. 97 Fowler). According to Pherecydes (as attributed by Iliad 5.126 scholia) as Tydeus is dying, having been wounded by Melanippus, Amphiaraus kills Melanippus, cuts off his head, and throws it to Tydeus, who begins to eat the brains. Athena arrives intending to bestow immortality on Tydeus, but disgusted by his savagery, she changes her mind.

Pindar
We learn several more details of the story in a poem of Pindar (Nemean 9). We are told of a dispute between Adrastus and Amphiaraus, resulting in Adrastus giving his sister ("man-subduing Eriphyle") to Amphiaraus in marriage. After which:

... they led an army of men to seven-gated Thebes
 * on a journey with no favorable omens, and Cronus’ son
 * brandished his lightning and urged them not to set out
 * recklessly from home, but to forgo the expedition.
 * But after all, the host was eager to march, with bronze
 * weapons and cavalry gear, into obvious disaster,

Pindar also alludes to the founding of the Nemean Games, by Adrastus (so also in Nemean 8 and 10). In the fighting at Thebes, Pindar says that, just as Amphiaraus is about to be struck in the back by the spear of Periclymenus, to save him from a warrior's "disgrace", Zeus split the earth with his thunderbolt, and buried Amphiaraus along with his horses. As for the rest of the expedition:

they laid down their sweet homecoming and fed the white-flowering smoke with their bodies, for seven pyres feasted on the men’s young limbs.

In another poem (Olympian 6) Pindar says that after "the corpses of the seven funeral pyres had been consumed", that Adrastus lamented Amphiaraus' death saying: "I dearly miss the eye of my army, good both as a seer and at fighting with the spear."

Eleusinians
The prohibition of the burial of the expeditions' dead at Thebes, is first attested for Aeschylus' lost tragedy Eleusinians (c. 500–475 BC). According to Plutarch, Aeschylus' play dealt with the story of the recovery of the dead at Thebes by Theseus, as a favor to Adrastus. Here Theseus recovers the bodies through negotiation, rather than by defeating the Thebans in battle, as in later accounts, such as Euripides' Suppliants (c. 420 BC). The tombs of the Seven, that the geographer Pausanias reports seeing on the road leading out of Eleusis, possibly already existed when Aeschlus' play was written.

Seven Against Thebes

The battle at Thebes is the subject of Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes (467 BC). This play is the first certain source for the number of the champions being seven. Aeschylus pairs a champion with each of the seven gates of Thebes, each of which is defended by a corresponding Theban champion. Aeschylus has each of the Seven saying a last goodbye to Adrastus—who although present at the battle is not considered by Aeschylus to be one of the Seven champions—and entrusting him with mementos to be given to their families.

Each of the Seven is described in order. The description includes the devices on their shield, their assigned gate, and the gate's Theban defender.

 * 1. Tydeus, on his shield the moon and stars, is assigned the Proetid Gate defended by Melanippus. But he is held back by the seer Amphiaraus because the sacrifices are giving bad signs. "Lusting madly for battle", Tydeus screams insults at Amphiaraus, calling him a coward.

 * 2. Capaneus, on his shield a man holding a torch, with the inscription "I will burn the city", is assigned the Electran Gate defended by Polyphontes. He boasts that he will sack Thebes, and that "not even the weapons of Zeus crashing down to earth will stand in his way or hold him back."

 * 3. Eteoclus, on his shield a man climbing a siege-ladder, is assigned the Neïstan Gate, defended by Megareus, son of Creon.

 * 4. Hippomedon, on his shield the monster Typhon, is assigned the Gate of Athena Onca defended by Hyperbius, the son of Oinops.

 * 5. Parthenopaeus, on his shield a Sphinx, is assigned the North Gate defended by Actor, the brother of Hyperbius. He is said to be a foreign ally of Argos from Arcadia.

 * 6. Amphiaraus, on his shield no image (since, it's said, he prefers reality over appearance) is assigned the Homoloïd Gate defended by Lasthenes. Described as a "man of the highest virtue and an excellent fighter", Amphiaraus yells insults back at Tydeus, calling him "murderer, wrecker of your city, Argos’ great instructor in evil, arouser of a Fury, high priest of Carnage" and blames him for being "Adrastus’ counsellor in these crimes" of attacking Thebes. He also rebukes Polynices for attacking and his own city with a foreign army, and devastating his homeland, saying that for his part he "will enrich this land by becoming a prophet buried in the soil of the enemy."

 * 7. Polynices, on his shield Dike (Justice) leading Polynices back to Thebes, is assigned the Seventh Gate defended by Eteocles.

No details of the actual fighting are given in the play. A messenger simply reports that the city wall has held, and that at the first six gates the city's champions have all won in single combat. But that, at the seventh gate, Polynices and Eteocles, the sons of Oedipus, have killed each other, "in accordance with their father’s curse".

Near the end of the play it is announced that the burial of Polynices is forbidden, and Antigone announces her intention to defy this prohibition. However this scene is generally thought not to have been written by Aeschylus, and to have been added to the play some time after the production of Sophocles's Antigone, which dealt with the same theme.

Antigone
Sophocles' tragedy Antigone (c. 441 BC), picks up the story of the Seven where Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes left off. Just as in Aeschylus' play, Sophocles has seven champions face seven defenders at the seven gates of Thebes—with Polynices and Eteocles killing each other—but with no names or other details:

"For seven captains posted against seven gates, man against man, left behind their brazen weapons for Zeus the god of trophies, except for the unhappy two, who, sprung of one father and one mother, set their strong spears against each other and both shared a common death."

Without naming him, Sophocles describes Capaneus' death:

"For Zeus detests the boasts of a proud tongue, and when he saw them advancing in full flood, with the arrogance of flashing gold, with the fire he hurls he flung down him who was already hastening to shout forth his victory on the topmost ramparts. And he fell upon the hard ground, shaken down, the torchbearer who in the fury of his mad rush breathed upon us with the blast of hateful winds."

Creon, who with the death of Eteocles is now the ruler of Thebes, has forbidden, on pain of death, the burial of Polynices. Polynices' sister Antigone announces her intention to defy Creon and bury her brother, begins the burial, is discovered by guards and arrested, sentenced to death by Creon, and hangs herself. Discounting the probably spurious scene in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, Sophocles' play is our earliest source for any involvement of Antigone in the story of the Seven.

The Suppliants
Euripides, in his tragedy The Suppliants (c. 420 BC) deals with the recovery of the expedition's dead warriors at Thebes. Adrastus has come to Eleusis, along with the mothers (the Chorus of suppliants) and sons of the Seven, to seek help from the Athenians in the recovery of their dead. In this play we hear for the first time an account of how the war came about. In an initial interview, Adrastus tells Theseus, the king of Athens, that Polynices, because of his father's curse, left Thebes "to avoid killing his brother", but that Eteocles "wronged" Polynices stealing "his property". In exile, Polynices came to Argos at night, fought with Tydeus, another exile who had arrived the same night, and that because of an oracle of Apollo saying he should marry his daughters to "a boar and a lion", and because the two men were fighting like wild beasts, he gave his daughters to the two men. It was to punish the "crime" done to his son-in-law Polynices, that Adrastus marched "seven companies against Thebes". Theseus then asks Adrastus whether he consulted seers and the gods before making war on Thebes, and Adrastus answers that, not only did he go to war "without the gods’ good will", he also "went against the wish of Amphiaraus."

Theseus, having finally been persuaded to help Adrastus, leads an Athenian army to Thebes where—unlike in Aeschylus' Eleusinians in which he is able to accomplish his mission through diplomacy—he must defeat the Thebans in battle in order to bring back to Eleusis the bodies of the fallen warriors. Five of the Seven are brought back, all except Amphiaraus, of whom it is said that "the gods by snatching him away alive, chariot and all, into the depths of the earth openly praise him", and so could not be brought back, and Polynices, who presumably was buried at Thebes. The rest of the Seven's army was buried by Theseus at Eleutherae a small village on the Attic side of Mount Cithaeron.

Adrastus gives a eulogy for the five of the Seven brought back to Eleusis. Here we learn that the Arcadian Parthenopaeus is the son of Atalanta, that Eteoclus is the son of Iphis, and that Iphis' daughter Evadne is married to Capaneus. The complete list given by Euripides is the same list of Seven given by Aeschylus: Tydeus, Capaneus, Eteoclus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Amphiaraus and Polynices. As for the recovered corpses, Theseus says that Capaneus, who was "struck down by the fire of Zeus", will be burned apart, on a separate funeral-pyre from the rest, who will be burned together on a single pyre. Capaneus' wife Evadne throws herself on his burning pyre. The ashes of the Seven are carried back to Argos by their sons, who vow to avenge their fathers deaths.

The Phoenician Women
Euripides' The Phoenician Women (c. 410–409 BC), like Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, deals with the battle at Thebes. We hear, for the first time, of an agreement between Polynices and Eteocles to rule Thebes in alternate years. In the prologue we are told that Oedipus had cursed his sons to "divide this house with the whetted sword", and that, in fear of this, they agreed that Polynices, as the younger brother, would leave Thebes, and that Eteocles would rule Thebes in the first year. But after the year was up, Eteocles refused to relinquish the throne. Polynices tells his mother an account of how, exiled from Thebes, he went to Argos and married Adrastus' daughter. He tells the same story already told in The Suppliants, coming to Argos late at night, fighting Tydeus, Adrastus giving them his daughters because of Apollo's oracle to marry his daughters "To lion and to boar", and Adrastus' promise to bring his new son-in-laws back from exile, starting with Polynices.

Euripides gives the same list of seven champions as he did in The Suppliants, and as Aeschylus did, with the exception that here Euripides counts Adrastus as being one of the Seven, in place of Eteocles. And, like Aeschylus, he pairs each of the Seven with a gate. Five of the gate names are the same: Homoloïd, Electran, Neïstan, Proetid and Seventh, and one of the pairings: Capaneus at the Electran Gate. Otherwise Euripides has Tydeus at the Homoloïd Gate, Hippomedon at the Ogygian Gate, Parthenopaeus at the Neïstan Gate, Amphiaraus at the Proetid Gate, Polynices at the Crenaean (i.e. Fountain) Gate, and Adrastus at the Seventh Gate.

Eteocles chooses seven Theban captains (unnamed), to oppose the Seven champions at the seven Theban gates. The Theban seer Tiresias prophesizes that the city can be saved only if Creon's son Menoeceus is killed. As Tiresias explains, in retribution for the killing of Ares' dragon, by Cadmus, the founder of Thebes, in order to appease Ares and propitiate Earth, a descendant of the Spartoi must be killed in the same place that the dragon was killed. Since only Menoeceus satisfies the proper conditions, he stabs himself on top of the city walls above where the dragon was killed, so that as his body falls it lands on that spot.

During the battle, Parthenopaeus is killed by Periclymenus. Capaneus, boasting that not even Zeus could stop him, is killed by Zeus' thunderbolt, and Adrastus, seeing that "Zeus was his army's enemy", withdraws his forces. Then Eteocles offers to fight Polynices in single combat, with the winner ruling Thebes. The offer is accepted by Polynices, and both armies swear to abide by its terms. The two brothers fight a duel, and kill each other. Since the two armies cannot agree on who won the duel, the battle resumes, and the Thebans are victorious.

Hypsipyle
Euripides' partially preserved play Hypsipyle (c. 411–407 BC), dramatized the Seven's stop at Nemea, and the death of the infant Opheltes. This play is the earliest source to involve Hypsipyle in Opheltes' story, which may well have been a Euripidean invention. Here Hypsipyle, the former queen of Lemnos and lover of Jason, has come to be a slave, and nursemaid of the infant Opheltes, who is the son of Lycurgus, the priest of Zeus at Nemea, and his wife Eurydice.

The Seven, having just arrived at Nemea, encounter Hypsipyle. Amphiaraus tells her that they need water for a sacrifice, and she leads the Seven to a spring. Hypsipyle brings Opheltes with her, and somehow, in a moment of neglect, Opheltes is killed by a serpent. Eurydice is about to have Hypsipyle put to death, when Amphiaraus arrives, tells Euridice that the child's death was destined, and proposes that funeral games be held in Opheltes' honor. Amphiaraus is able to convince Euridice to spare Hypsipyle's life, and the games are held.

Oedipus at Colonus
Only the anticipation of the Seven's war at Thebes is dealt with in Sophocles' Oedipus at Colonus (401 BC). Polynices (who here is the older brother) says that he was driven into exile by Eteocles, as in Pherecydes.

Sophocles gives the same list of Seven as given in Aeschylus' Seven Against Thebes, and Euripides' The Suppliants: Tydeus, Capaneus, Eteoclus, Hippomedon, Parthenopaeus, Amphiaraus and Polynices. Eteoclus is said to be Argive, and Hippomedon is said to be the son of Talaus, and thus the brother of Adrastus.

Asclepiades
Likely drawing upon lost fifth-century BC tragedies by Aeschylus and Sophocles, the fourth-century BC literary critic Asclepiades (as reported by Odyssey scholia) tells the story of Amphiaraus's betrayal by his wife Eriphyle. According to Asclepiades, after some quarrel between Amphiaraus and Adrastus, the two men swore an oath that, for any future disagreements, the two men would be ruled by Amphiaraus's wife and Adrastus's sister, Eriphyle. When the expedition against Thebes was being assembled, Amphiaraus argued against it, and prophesied the disaster to come. However Eriphyle, having received from Polynices the necklace of Harmonia, forced Amphiaraus to join the expedition.

Late sources
The Greek historian Diodorus Siculus (first century BC), the Roman mythographer Hyginus (c. 64 BC – AD 17), the Latin poet Statius (c. 45 – c. 96), and the Greek mythographer Apollodorus (first or second century AD), all gave accounts of the story of the Seven against Thebes. Each of these accounts is more or less complete, and consistent with earlier accounts. But there are a few differences, and several additional details.

Diodorus Siculus
Diodorus Siculus, following Euripides, says that Polynices and Eteocles agreed to rule in alternate years. Being the oldest, Eteocles ruled the first year, after which he refused to give up the throne, and Polynices fled to Argos. There he married Adrastus' daughter Argia and Adrastus promised to restore Polynices to the Theban throne.

In Diodorus' account—unlike in Homer—Tydeus' embassy and ambush occurs before the army is assembled. Tydeus travels from Argos to Thebes and back, and somewhere along the way is ambushed by fifty Thebans. Upon learning of the failure of Tydeus' mission, Adrastus begins organizing an expedition against Thebes.

Diodorus gives a more complete version of Amphiaraus' betrayal by his wife Eriphyle, consistent with the passing mentions in Homer and Pindar, and the account attributed to Asclepiades. Amphiaraus had foreseen his death, and because of this would not join Adrastus in his expedition against Thebes. But the two men agreed to let Eriphyle decide the issue, and because Polynices had given Eriphyle the golden necklace of Harmonia, she decides that the expedition should be undertaken, and that Amphiaraus should take part.

Adrastus recruits Capaneus, Hippomedon and Parthenopaeus, the son of Atalanta, to join himself, Polynices, Tydeus, and Amphiaraus as the seven leaders of the "notable army", the same list of Seven as in The Phoenician Women. Omitting any mention of the Seven's stop at Nemea, Diodorus moves directly to the battle at Thebes. As always, Polynices and Eteocles kill each other, Capaneus dies while "impetuously ascending the wall by a scaling-ladder" (with no mention of a thunderbolt), the earth swallows Amphiaraus and his chariot, and all the rest of the Seven die, except Adrastus. As for the burial of the Seven, Diodorus (with no mention of Creon, Antigone or Theseus) says that the Thebans refused to allow Adrastus to remove the dead, so he goes home to Argos, and (as in Euripides' The Suppliants) the Athenians recover the bodies and bury them.

Hyginus
In his Fabulae, Hyginus gives an account of the story, mostly in accord with earlier sources (67–74). Just as Diodorus does, Hyginus lists the same Seven as in The Phoenician Women: Adrastus, Polynices, Tydeus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Hippomedon, and Parthenopaeus. He adds that Capaneus and Hippomedon are the sons of sisters of Adrastus (70) (this is a different parentage for Hippomedon than in Oedipus at Colonus where he is the son of Taulus). The army stops at Nemea in search of water, Opheltes is killed by a snake, and the Seven establish funeral games in the child's honor (74). At Thebes, an impious Capaneus is struck down by a Jovian thunderbolt while scaling the city walls, the earth swallows Amphiaraus, Polynices and Eteocles kill each other (68), and all the rest die except Adrastus (70).

Hyginus gives a different account of Antigone's fate than in Sophocles' Antigone, possibly following Euripides' lost tragedy Antigone. Creon forbids burial of the Seven, including Polynices, but Antigone, and Argia, Polynices wife, burn his corpse on Eteocles' funeral-pyre. They are caught, Argia escapes, and although Antigone is initially saved by Creon's son Haemon, she is eventually killed (72).

Statius
Just as the Cyclic Thebaid had been, the Latin poet Statius's Thebaid (c. 92 AD), is devoted entirely to the story of the Seven against Thebes. An epic poem in 12 books, it begins with Oedipus cursing his sons Polynices and Eteocles, who he says have mistreated him (1.56–87). The brothers having agreed to rule Thebes in alternate years (1.138–139), Eteocles occupies the Theban throne, while Polynices is in exile for a year (1.164–165). One night during a raging storm, Polynices and Tydeus arrive at Adrastus' palace in Argos seeking refuge. They quarrel over the same bit of shelter, a fight breaks out, Adrastus is awoken, and separates them. He invites the two inside, and notices that Polynices wears a lion's pelt and that Tydeus a boar's skin and tusks, and by these signs, Adrastus recognizes in Polynices and Tydeus, the husbands that had been prophesied for his two daughters (1.401–512). The next day Polynices and Tydeus accept Adrastus' offer of his daughters Argia and Deipyle in marriage, and Adrastus promises to help the two regain their native kingdoms (2.152–200).

Statius devotes most of Book 2 to Tydeus' embassy to Thebes. As in Diodorus' account, this occurs before the Argive army has been assembled. Polynices, Tydesus and Adrastus agree that someone should be sent to Thebes to see if Eteocles will peacefully surrender the throne, and Tydeus volunteers. At Thebes, Tydeus engages in a long confrontation with Eteocles, who rejects Tydeus' arguments that, since his year of rule is over, he should give over the kingship to Polynices (2.363–451). On his way back to Argos, Tydeus is ambushed by fifty Thebans, but kills all of these but Maeon (2.482–703).

In Book 3, on returning to Argos, Tydeus urges an immediate attack of Thebes (3.324–364). Adrastus consults the seers Amphiaraus and Melampus who receive ill omens (3.440–551). The Argive people demand war (3.575–597). Amphiaraus is forced to reveal what he has foreseen: death and defeat at Thebes (3.618–3.647). Argia now Polynices' wife, tearfully urges her father Adrastus to make war on Thebes, who begins assembling an army (3.678–721).

In Book 4 the expedition sets out from Argos. Statius' Seven champions are the same as in The Phoenician Women, Diodorus, and Hyginus: Adrastus, Polynices, Tydeus, Hippomedon, Capaneus, Amphiaraus, and Parthenopaeus (4.32–250). Bacchus, wishing to delay the Seven, causes a drought, and the Seven, in desperate need of water, are forced to stop at Nemea (4.646–745).

Statius devotes the rest of Book 4, through the end of Book 6, to the Death of Opheltes. At Nemea the Seven encounter Hypsipyle the nurse of Opheltes, the infant son of Lycurgus the king of Nemea. While Hypsipyle leads the Seven to a spring, Opheltes is killed by a monstrous serpent. The Seven kill the serpent and save Hypsipyle from being put to death by Lycurgus. They hold funeral games in Opheltes' honor, which will become the Nemean Games.

In Book 7, the expedition arrives at Thebes, the fighting begins, and continues through Book 11. The earth swallows up Amphiaraus and his chariot (7.794–823). Tydeus is fatally wounded by Melanippus, but is brought Melanippus' severed head and Tydeus eats Melanippus' brains (8.716–766). Hippomedon, nearly drowned by the flooding river Ismenus, is killed by a "shower" of Theban spears (9.522–539). Parthenopaeus is killed by Dryas (9.841–849). In response to a prophecy of the seer Tiresias, in order to save Thebes, Menoeceus sacrifices himself by leaping from the city walls (10.756–782). Capaneus climbs a tower and is killed by a Jovian thunderbolt (10.837–939). Polynices challenges Eteocles to single combat (11.239–249), Eteocles accepts (11.389–395) and the brothers kill each other (11.403–573).

In Book 12, Creon forbids the burial of Polynices and the Argive dead (12.94–103). Both searching the battlefield for Polynices, his wife Argia and his sister Antigone meet by chance over his dead body (12.362–408). They burn his corpse on Eteocles' funeral pyre, and are arrested (12.429–463). They are about to be executed when Theseus arrives threatening war (12.677–686). A battle ensues, Theseus kills Creon in single combat, enters the city as victor, and the bodies of the fallen warriors are burned and buried (12.720–809).

Apollodorus
According to Apollodorus, Polynices and Eteocles agreed to rule Thebes in alternate years. He adds that while some say Eteocles ruled first, others say Polynices had the first year, after which he handed over the throne to Eteocles. However, in either case Eteocles refused to hand over the kingdom to Polynices. Exiled, Polynices took with him the necklace and robe of Harmonia and fled to Argos.

Like Asclepiades and Diodorus, Apollodorus says that Polynices bribed Amphiaraus' wife Eriphyle with the necklace, forcing Amphiaraus to go to war. Apollodorus (agreeing with The Phoenician Women, Diodorus, Hyginus, and Statius) lists the Seven champions as: Adrastus, Amphiaraus, Capaneus, Hippomedon, Polynices, Tydeus, and Parthenopaeus. However he adds that "some" do not count Tydeus and Polynices among the Seven, but include Eteoclus, son of Iphis, and Mecisteus, a son of Talaus and brother of Adrastus. Although in Oedipus at Colonus, Hippomedon is the son of Talaus (and so a brother of Adrastus), and in Hyginus he was the son of a sister of Adrastus, according to Apollodorus, Hippomedon was the son of Aristomachus, another brother of Adrastus. Apollodorus notes however that "some" said Hippomedon was the son of Talaus.

At funeral games for Opheltes held at Nemea he says that:

"Adrastus won the horse race, Eteoclus the footrace, Tydeus the boxing match, Amphiaraus the leaping and quoit-throwing match, Laodocus the javelin-throwing match, Polynices the wrestling match, and Parthenopaeus the archery match."

As in Homer, when the army had arrived just south of Thebes, Tydeus is sent on his embassy to Thebes and on his way back he is ambushed by fifty Thebans, and kills all but Maeon. At Thebes (as in Seven Against Thebes and The Phoenician Women) each of the Seven is assigned one of the seven gates of Thebes:

"Adrastus was stationed at the Homoloidian gate, Capaneus at the Ogygian, Amphiaraus at the Proetidian, Hippomedon at the Oncaidian, Polynices at the Hypsistan, Parthenopaeus at the Electran, and Tydeus at the Crenidian."

As in The Phoenician Women and Statius' Thebaid, in response to Tiresias' prophecy, Menoeceus sacrifices himself before the gates. Meanwhile, a battle having occurred outside the city gates, the Thebans have been driven back to their walls. Capaneus begins scaling them, but is struck down by Zeus, causing the Argive army to flee. Polynices and Eteocles fight a duel for the kingship and kill each other. Hippomedon is killed by Ismarus, Eteoclus is killed by Leades, Parthenopaeus is killed by Amphidicus (which, as Apollodorus points out, is different than what Euripides said, that Parthenopaeus was killed by Periclymenus).

Tydeus is mortally wounded by Melanippus in the belly. Athena brought Tydeus a potion by which she intended to make him immortal. But Amphiaraus, who hated Tydeus for having instigated the war, perceived Athena's intention. So he cut off Melanippus' head, and gave it to Tydeus, who cut it open and ate the brains. This so disgusted Athena that she withheld the potion, as Amphiaraus intended. Although Melanippus is usually said to have been killed by Amphiaraus, a possible interpolation in Apollodorus' text says that, the wounded Tydeus managed to kill Melanippus himself.

Amphiaraus then fled the battlefield, and when he was about to be killed by Periclymenus' spear in the back, Zeus opened the earth. He was swallowed up, along with his chariot and charioteer (either Baton or Elato), and Zeus made him immortal. Because of his horse Arion, Adrastus is, as always, the only champion saved.

Apollodorus follows Sophocles' Antigone in his account of Antigone's heroism and death (without mentioning Haemon). And for the most part follows Euripides' The Suppliants in his account of the recovery and burial of the dead: Adrastus fled to Athens, as a suppliant at the altar of Mercy sought the Athenian's aid, Theseus marched on Thebes, captured the city and recovered the dead, and Evadne jumped on her husband's burning pyre.

title: Seven against Thebes


text:
Akilathirattu Ammanai

Akilathirattu Ammanai (அகிலத்திரட்டு அம்மானை; akilam ("world"), thirattu ("collection"), ammanai ("ballad")), also called Thiru Edu ("venerable book"), is the main religious text of the Tamil belief system Ayyavazhi. The title is often abbreviated to Akilam or Akilathirattu.

Akilam includes more than 15,000 verses and is the largest collection of Ammanai literature in Tamil as well as one of the largest works in Tamil constructed by a single author.

History
Author Hari Gopalan Citar states in the text that he wrote this book on a Friday, the twenty-seventh day of the Tamil month of Karthikai (13 December) in the year 1839 CE. The author claims that God woke him up during his sleep and commissioned him to record his dictation. Akilathirattu was recorded on palm leaves until 1939, when it was printed.

According to the author, the book is the story of God coming in this age, the Kali Yukam or Iron Age, to rule the world by transforming it into the Dharma Yukam. This story of faith weaves together the historical facts about Ayya Vaikundar and his activities with reinterpretations of episodes from the Hindu Puranas (mythologies) and Itihasas (epics). It is presented as if Vishnu is narrating the whole story to his consort Lakshmi.

Though the Citar Hari Gopalan wrote the book Akilam, he claimed that he did not know anything about the contents of the book. He woke up in the morning as usual and he didn't know what he had written the day before. Another legend says that he began it that night and continued through the following days. Others say that it was written beginning on Friday, 27th Karthikai (Tamil Calendar) 1016 M.E, and completed on the seventeenth day on the second Sunday of Margazhi (Tamil Calendar) 1016 M.E.

When Ayya Vaikundar avatar was completed, God reached Vaikundam. It contained the regulations of the Ayyavazhi sect. As per the instructions found there in Akilam, Ayyavazhi was preached by the Citars far and wide.

Style
Akilam is in two parts: the first is an account of the ages preceding that of the present age, the Kali Yukam; and the second is an account of the activities of Ayya Vaikundar leading up to his attaining Vaikundam.

Akilathirattu is written as a poem in the Tamil language. The narration alternates between two subgenres called viruttam and natai. Both subgenres employ poetic devices like alliteration and hyperbatons. The text contains seventeen sections, and more than 15,000 verses. In a typical Ammanai style, Akilam maintains more than one context for its verses throughout the text. While the floating ideas of the lines could be comparatively easily communicated, the underlying theme couldn't be understood unless the background and culture are understood, specifically a foundational knowledge of the Hindu pantheon of gods, the Hindu scriptures, Dharmic concepts and philosophy, and other rudiments of the religion.

Versions
The texts written by Hari Gopalan Citar are damaged and thus it is difficult to read the contents. The texts are still preserved as relics by his descendants. There are three versions, which were copied from the first version:

 * Panchalagkuricchi Version
 * Swamithoppe Version
 * Kottangadu Version

Of these three, the Panchalankuricchi Version is believed to have copied by from the main version by Hari Gopalan Citar. The other two versions were copied later. Apart from these the Nariyan vilai Version, Varampetran-pantaram Version, and Saravanantheri Version are the other early palm-leaf versions of Akilam.

Other versions include the Palaramachandran version, the VTV, published twice, the Kalai Ilakkiya-peravai Version and the Vivekanandan Version. But of these, the Ayya Vaikundar Thirukkudumbam version is often criticized for adding and removing additional verses from various versions. Some argue that over 300 pages were adulterated. Thirukkudumbam claims that these additional lines were added from the early palm-leaf versions (Panchalankuricchi Version and Kottangadu Version), which are believed to have been missing from Akilam. This version is not widely accepted.

All the release versions except the Palaramachandran version organize the contents into seventeen sections as per the Thiru Eadu-vasippu partition. The Sentrathisai Ventraperumal version which was released in 1965 includes more than two-thousand verses not found in other versions. The Palaramachandran version is the widely accepted and the largest circulated version.

Contents
The book focuses on the devotion to Vaikundar, considered to be an aspect of the God Vishnu. It is a poetic narrative in Tamil intended to be an excellent compilation of the various aspects of Indian mythology and beliefs about God.

The first eight chapters of the book narrate the events starting from the creation of the Universe to the time exactly before the incarnation of Vaikundar. The ninth chapter describes in detail the events taking place in the divine plan during the incarnation of Vaikundar. The last eight chapters focus on the legendary, empirical, historical and mythical aspects pertaining to the life of Vaikundar.

Evolution and Yugas
The book starts with the explanation given by Vishnu to his consort Lakshmi about the evolution of Universe and of human beings. It is said that there is a total of eight aeons, or yugas, and we are currently in the seventh yuga called Kali Yuga, the age of deterioration. It is believed that for each yuga there is a demon that will be destroyed by Vishnu. In the first yuga, Kroni was born. Vishnu fragmented him into six pieces and each fragment will incarnate as demon in each Yuga. The first four yugas are said to be the Neetiya Yuga, Chatura Yuga, Nedu Yuga and Kretha Yuga. These four yugas do not have parallels in the mainstream Hinduism.

The fifth yuga is said to be the Treta Yuga in which the Lord Rama incarnated as human. The sixth yuga is the Dvapara Yuga, and there is a short but striking description of the life of Krishna and the Bharatha war. Additionally, there is said to be another event called the birth of Santror or noble people at the closure of Dvapara Yuga.

Kali Yuga
Kali Yuga, the seventh Yuga begins when the evil spirit called Kali (not to be confused with the mother goddess Kali) was born. Kali is believed to be cognate with the modern human beings. Then was born the Neesan, the demon for the Kali Yuga. It is said that this demon became the king of the earth in various places and tortured the lives of the Santror. Because of this Lord Vishnu advised Neesan to stop torturing the Santror. But he won't agree to Vishnu and would prefer to die rather than giving up. In order to stop the rule of Neesan and to bring an end to Kali-yuga, Vishnu made a plan to make Vaikundar incarnate as human.

The Incarnation
Vaikundar is believed to be the Son of Vishnu and Lakshmi. He was beget inside the sea and sent as a human into the land. From the point of incarnation of Vaikundar, it is said that he was made the supreme of all godhead, and will destroy Neesan and also the evil Kali Yuga. It is also said that he will take all righteous people with him into the Vaikundam in the eighth yuga called as Dharma Yukam. Also, nothing is said about the period which follows Dharma yuga, which means that timeline is linear, and not circular as believed inside mainstream Hinduism.

Sections
The Akilam is divided into seventeen parts:
 * Akilam one
 * Akilam two
 * Akilam three: This section closes the Dwapara Yukam, and describes the birth of Santror and Makkal, their growth and marriage.
 * Akilam four
 * Akilam five
 * Akilam six
 * Akilam seven: This is considered a bit more important to all previous sections during religious studies since the events and plans related to Pre-Incarnational activities of Vaikundar starts from here onwards. This part contains the primary events of preparations to the incarnation of Vaikundar. It also contains the events of Jail to Kali, acceptance of Seven Virgins to take birth in the world etc.
 * Akilam eight: At the end of Akilam eight, the Ayyavazhi and Hindu myths disassociate and are treated with higher importance than the previous section. This part contains the worldly birth of devas and Avatar of Vaikundar taken into the sea, Thiruvasakam - 1 and Thiru Nadana Ula.
 * Akilam nine: Talks about the circumstances happening just prior and when Vaikundar incarnates in the world.
 * Akilam ten: This part contains the events of Vaikundar's appearance at the sea-shore after the Avatar. It also contains the Thiruvasakam-2.
 * Akilam eleven: This sub-section contains the Rules and regulations to God-heads given by Vaikundar, the Thiruvasakam-3, and the Tavam of Vaikundar.
 * Akilam twelve: This part contains the Thiruvasakam-4, the destruction of devils, the arrival of Kaliyan's force to arrest Vaikundar and second Vinchai.
 * Akilam thirteen: This part contains the events of the Arrest of Vaikundar, the Katuvai Sothanai and release of Vaikundar etc. It also includes the Muttappathi Vinchai - 1 and the first phase of Thuvayal Thavasu.
 * Akilam fourteen: This part contains the events of Third Vinchai, arrest of Devas and the discussion of Vaikundar and Seven Virgins etc.
 * Akilam fifteen: This part is also called 'Kalyana Vasippu'. It contains the events of the marriage of Vaikundar with the Seven Virgins narrated in a grant poetic style.
 * Akilam sixteen: This part contains the events of Vaikundar's symbolic marriages with the Seven deities.
 * Akilam seventeen: This part contains the events of Vaikundar's final Judgement to Kroni and sentencing him to hell and the dawn of Dharma Yukam.

Teachings
Akilam teaches a set of values that are theological, sociological and philosophical. Of these, the ideas promoted by Akilam spans throughout the various teachings found in Hindu scriptures and present Hinduism in the first half and at the second, a set of revolutionary teachings, in all aspects were focussed. The theological teachings revolves around the supremacy of Vaikundar while the sociological teachings mainly focus on breaking up the inequalities prevalent in the society. The Philosophical ideas mainly focus the 'Ultimate oneness' of nature and all living beings.

Theosophy
All the major Hindu deities namely Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva, Sarasvati, Lakshmi, Parvati, Skanda, and Ganesha are mentioned directly in the mythology throughout the book. Also there is an indirect mention about Bible, Allah and Quran inside the book. A reference found in Akilam about Jesus is more direct than indirect. Also the book seems to stress that all texts and scriptures are true and have a share about the truth of the Divine. It is notable that Akilam is heavily against creating religions as it does not mention the term 'religion' at least once anywhere in the text and do refers only to God-heads, concepts and scriptures.

Sociology
It is said that social inequality and destruction of caste ethics are the main aspects of the Kali Yuga. So the entire book focuses on social equality and strictly against Jati or the Indian caste system. But it also says that the 'Varnashrama Dharma' system was perfect until the end of Dvapara Yuga. Also, there are traces of references to leading a chaste life and vegetarian diet. There is a strict condemnation about the religious fundamentalism especially of the Abrahamic traditions.

Philosophy
The key philosophy in the book is that human beings are by themselves separated from God by the influence of Kali, and Vaikundar has come for their redemption.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Akilathirattu Ammanai


text:
American Caesar

American Caesar: Douglas MacArthur, 1880–1964 is a 1978 biography of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur by American historian William Manchester.

Manchester paints a sympathetic but balanced portrait of MacArthur, praising the general for what he calls his military genius, administrative skill, and personal bravery, while criticizing his vanity, paranoia, and tendency toward insubordination. As the title suggests, Manchester's central thesis is that MacArthur was an analogue of Julius Caesar, a proposition he supports by comparing their purported great intellect, brilliant strategic generalship, political ambition, magnanimity as conquerors, and shared tragic flaw of hubris.

It was made into a series in 1983 hosted by John Huston.

title: American Caesar


text:
User:Kaptainmyke

Mike Sorensen (born February 3, 1980[1] (http://www.broke-off.com)), better known by his nickname "KaptainMyke", is an Internet personality and owner and operator of the Broke-Off humor website. The nickname "KaptainMyke" was from an old Quake handle playing online "Capture the Flag" missions as "KaptainKillgore". Most people online from these gaming servers, and from a car forum named 2gnt.com called him "Kaptain Mike". Mike decided to keep the "Kaptain" part, and change the "i" to a "y" to confuse people. Being his obsession with the comic book super hero "Superman", it just seemed appropriate to have a super hero nickname. In September of 2002, Mike Sorensen started a website named kaptainmyke.com. Mike's sole purpose of this web space was to have a image storage area for his photoshops and comedy battles with his fellow forum peers over at 2gnt. Over the years, the site has grown and become much more than it once was. As a bold move to show his separation from 2gnt.com and it's car members, and also to try and prevent more car nuts coming over to his off-topic and photoshop world on the internet.

KaptainMyke is a man. A man with a dream. A man who sprinkles his magical pop culture dust across America and the world by providing amazing t-shirts inspired by movies and television. KaptainMyke is an insane and eccentric film fanatic at heart. KaptainMyke literally has thousands of movies that he watches religiously on a daily basis. Every night is "Grindhouse Night" at Casa Del KaptainMyke.

Believe it or not: Someone born in 1995 often doesn't know what the "flux capacitor" is. Or, more importantly, who the "Wyld Stallyns" will be. Only 3 in 50 teens knows what the "96er" is.

KaptainMyke demands justice! There should be a mandatory elective in every American high school entitled "Pop Culture 101". He should teach it, too. Of course this is impossible when one lacks a "teaching degree". Besides, the whole class would be too confused why there are three Deloreans in 1955 Hill Valley.

What is the alternate 1985 path for KaptainMyke? Why not apply this love of American film culture with the admiration he possesses for hollywood's most creative talents by selling amazing t-shirts for amazing people?

title: User:Kaptainmyke


text:
Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Edward Yazbak

 This page is an archive of the discussion about the proposed deletion of the article below. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made on the article's talk page rather than here so that this page is preserved as an historic record. The result of the debate was KEEP. JeremyA 22:57, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Edward Yazbak
No potential to become encyopedic. The guy isn't notable. His names as reported in the article is brings up about a 10th of the number of google hits my lectures rack up an when you consider that the artilce strongly suggests his activities are mostly webased this is significant. See also wikipedia is not a soapbox.Geni 23:23, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * strong keep: As a prominent advocate for vaccine safety, the article on Dr. Yazbak should be kept. His works are routinely cited by other advocates.  His courage in standing up to the political power of the medical establishment also makes him noteworthy as a whistleblower.  Ombudsman 00:43, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep. While there were only 810 hits on Google when I put in Yazbak and autism, the quality of the citations was generally pretty good, IMO.  I think people who read his views may want some information on him.  That is what an encyclopedia is good for. DS1953 01:11, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * acording to Web of knowlage the largest number of times his one papers has been cited is 12. that isn't very good.Geni 16:09, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * Keep per DS1953. Xoloz 03:57, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep per DS1953. --Angr/undefined 07:00, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Keep and tag for cleanup. There are some POV issues, but there's no reason for deletion. Dystopos 22:41, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Strong keep. jglc | t | c 16:03, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * This page is now preserved as an archive of the debate and, like some other VfD subpages, is no longer 'live'. Subsequent comments on the issue, the deletion, or the decision-making process should be placed on the relevant 'live' pages.  Please do not edit this page .


text:
Moses Wright

Moses Anthony Wright (born December 23, 1998) is an American professional basketball player for Olympiacos of the Greek Basket League (GBL) and the EuroLeague. He played college basketball for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. He is also known as Wright the Right.

Early life and high school career
Wright grew up swimming and playing tennis. He did not play basketball until he was entering high school. Wright attended Enloe High School in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he played on the junior varsity team for his first two years. He competed for the Raleigh Hawks, a homeschool team, as a junior before making Enloe's varsity team in his senior season. He averaged 21.5 points, 13.5 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game per game as a senior. He committed to playing college basketball for Georgia Tech. He was lightly recruited by NCAA Division I programs and not ranked by major recruiting services.

College career
Wright averaged 3.6 points and 3.4 rebounds per game in his freshman season at Georgia Tech. On March 12, 2019, he recorded a sophomore season-high 25 points and seven rebounds in a 78–71 loss to Notre Dame at the first round of the ACC tournament. As a sophomore, Wright averaged 6.7 points and 3.7 rebounds per game. On February 22, 2020, he posted a career-high 33 points and 10 rebounds in a 79–72 loss to Syracuse. In his junior season, he averaged 13 points and seven rebounds per game. On November 25, he registered 31 points and 20 rebounds in a 123–120 loss to Georgia State in quadruple overtime.

On March 8, 2021, Wright was named the ACC Player of the Year and first-team All-ACC for his senior season. He missed the NCAA tournament round of 64 game against Loyola Chicago after testing positive for COVID-19. As a senior, he averaged 17.4 points, 8 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.6 blocks per game. On March 28, 2021, Wright declared for the 2021 NBA draft.

Professional career
After going undrafted in the 2021 NBA draft, Wright joined the New Orleans Pelicans for the 2021 NBA Summer League and averaged 7.2 points, 4.4 rebounds and 1.4 blocks per game. On September 27, 2021, he signed with the Los Angeles Clippers. However, he was waived on October 14. On October 27, Wright signed with the Agua Caliente Clippers as an affiliate player. In 13 games, he averaged 13.5 points and 8.5 rebounds in 29.7 minutes.

On December 21, 2021, Wright signed a ten-day contract with the Los Angeles Clippers.

On December 31, 2021, Wright was reacquired and activated by the Agua Caliente Clippers of the NBA G League.

On February 24, 2022, Wright signed a two-way contract with the Dallas Mavericks.

On July 28, 2022, Wright signed with the Zhejiang Golden Bulls of the Chinese Basketball Association.

On December 16, 2023, he signed with Merkezefendi Bld. Denizli Basket of the Basketbol Süper Ligi (BSL).

On January 26, 2024, he signed with Olympiacos of the Greek Basket League (GBL) and the EuroLeague through 2025.

EuroLeague

 * style="text-align:left;"| 2023–24
 * style="text-align:left;"| Olympiacos
 * 17 || 2 || 13.9 || .703 || .500 || .615 || 2.9 || .5 || .9 || .6 || 8.1 || 10.2
 * - class="sortbottom"
 * style="text-align:center;" colspan="2"|Career
 * 17 || 2 || 13.9 || .703 || .500 || .615 || 2.9 || .5 || .9 || .6 || 8.1 || 10.2
 * 17 || 2 || 13.9 || .703 || .500 || .615 || 2.9 || .5 || .9 || .6 || 8.1 || 10.2

Personal life
Wright's father, Gerald, died of a heart attack in January 2012 after developing a staph infection following years of health issues. His mother, Calla, is a former music teacher for the Wake County Public School System.

title: Moses Wright


text:
William Auchterlonie

William "Willie" Auchterlonie (7 August 1872 – 27 February 1963  ) was a Scottish professional golfer. He was a native of St Andrews. He won the 1893 Open Championship at the age of 23 years, 4 days and he remains the second youngest Open Champion after Tom Morris, Jnr, but it was to prove to be his only Open. His brother, Laurie Auchterlonie, won the 1902 U.S. Open.

Auchterlonie was honorary professional to The Royal and Ancient Golf Club of St Andrews for nearly a quarter of a century. He had begun his working life as an apprentice to the club makers R. Forgan & Son and he ran club making businesses for most of his adult life. There is still a golf shop called Auchterlonie's in St Andrews. He was involved in golf course design.

Results timeline
Note: Auchterlonie only played in The Open Championship.

{{legend|lime|Win}} {{legend|yellow|Top 10}} {{legend|#eeeeee|Did not play}} CUT = missed the half-way cut

"T" indicates a tie for a place

title: William Auchterlonie


text: User:Ethica/Desk

title: User:Ethica/Desk


text:
Volkshalle

The Volkshalle ("People's Hall"), also called Große Halle ("Great Hall") or Ruhmeshalle ("Glory hall"), was a proposal for a monumental, domed building to be built in a reconstituted Berlin (renamed as Germania) in Nazi Germany. The project was conceived by Adolf Hitler and designed by his architect Albert Speer. No part of the building was ever constructed.

The word Volk had a particular resonance in Nazi thinking. The term völkisch movement, which can be translated to English as "the people's movement" or "the folkish movement", derives from Volk but also implies a particularly racial undertone. Before the First World War, völkisch thought had developed an attitude to the arts as the German Volk; that is, from an organically linked Aryan or Nordic community (Volksgemeinschaft), "racially unpolluted" and with its roots in the German soil of the Heimat (homeland).

Hitler and Hadrian's Pantheon
Just as Augustus's Domus on the Palatine was connected to the Temple of Apollo Palatinus, so Hitler's palace was to have been connected by a cryptoporticus to the Volkshalle, which filled the entire north side of the forum. This truly enormous building was, according to Speer, inspired by Hadrian's Pantheon, which Hitler visited privately on May 7, 1938. But Hitler's interest in and admiration for the Pantheon predated this visit, since his sketch of the Volkshalle dates from about 1925. Hermann Giesler records a conversation he had with Hitler in the winter of 1939–40, when Hitler was recalling his “Roman Impressions” (Römische Impressionen):

"From the time I experienced this building – no description, picture or photograph did it justice – I became interested in its history […] For a short while I stood in this space (the rotunda) – what majesty! I gazed at the large open oculus and saw the universe and sensed what had given this space the name Pantheon – God and the world are one."

Hitler's impressions of the Roman Pantheon were revived when on June 24, 1940, he made a tour of selected buildings in Paris, with German architects Speer and Giesler and sculptor Arno Breker, including the Paris Panthéon, which seems to have disappointed him, independently recorded by Giesler and Breker.

The sketch of the Volkshalle given by Hitler to Speer shows a traditional gabled pronaos supported by ten columns, a shallow rectangular intermediate block and behind it the domed main building. Giesler notes that the pronaos of the temple in Hitler's sketch is reminiscent of Hadrian's Pantheon and of the style of Friedrich Gilly or Karl Friedrich Schinkel. However, there was little about Speer's elaboration of the sketch that might be termed Doric, except perhaps for the triglyphs in the entablature, supported by the geminated red granite columns with their Egyptian palm-leaf capitals, previously employed by Speer in the portico outside Hitler's study on the garden side of the new Chancellery.

Speer's Monster-Building (Monsterbau) was to be the capital's most important and impressive building in terms of its size and symbolism. Visually it was to have been the architectural centrepiece of Berlin as the world capital (Welthauptstadt). Its dimensions were so large that it would have dwarfed every other structure in Berlin, including those on the north-south axis itself. The oculus of the building's dome, 46 m in diameter, would have accommodated the entire rotunda of Hadrian's Pantheon and the dome of St. Peter's Basilica. The dome of the Volkshalle was to rise from a massive granite podium 315 x and 74 m high, to a total inclusive height of 290 m. The diameter of the dome, 250 m, was to be exceeded, much to Speer's annoyance, by the diameter of Giesler's new domed railway station at the east end of Munich's east-west axis. It was to be 15 m greater in diameter than Speer's Volkshalle.

The resemblance of the Volkshalle to the Pantheon is far more obvious when their interiors are compared. The large niche 50 x at the north end of the Volkshalle was to be surfaced with gold mosaic and to enclose an eagle 24 m high, beneath which was situated Hitler's tribunal. From here he would address 180,000 listeners, some standing in the central round arena, others seated in three concentric tiers of seats crowned by one hundred marble pillars, 24 m high, which rose to meet the base of the coffered ceiling suspended from steel girders sheathed on the exterior with copper.

The three concentric tiers of seats enclosing a circular arena 140 m in diameter owe nothing to the Pantheon but resemble the seating arrangements in Ludwig Ruff's Congress Hall at Nuremberg, which was modeled on the Colosseum. Other features of the Volkshalle 's interior are clearly indebted to Hadrian's Pantheon: the coffered dome, the pillared zone, which here is continuous, except where it flanks the huge niche on the north side. The second zone in the Pantheon, consisting of blind windows with intervening pilasters, is represented in Speer's building by a zone above the pillars consisting of uniform, oblong shallow recesses. The coffered dome rests on this zone. The design and size of the external decoration of this Volkshalle, are all exceptional and call for explanations that do not apply to community halls planned for Nazi fora in other German cities.

The temple-like nature of the domed building was noted by Speer, who surmised that the building was ultimately intended for public worship of Hitler, his successors and the German Reich, that is, it was to be a dynastic temple/palace complex of the kind Augustus built on the Palatine, where his modest house was connected to the temple of Apollo.

Hitler's aspirations to hegemony over Europe and the establishment of the New Order, already evident from architectural and decorative features of the new Chancellery, are even more clearly expressed here. External symbols suggest that the domed hall was where Hitler as cosmocrat (Herr der Welt) would appear before his Herrenvolk: On top of the dome's lantern was the German heraldic eagle clutching the globe of the Earth (Erdball). This symbolism was well known in imperial Roman iconography, for example, the restored statue of Claudius holding a ball and eagle in his right hand. The vast dome, on which it rested, as with Hadrian's Pantheon, symbolically represented the vault of the sky spanning Germany's empire. The globe on the dome's lantern was enhanced and emphasised by two monumental sculptures by Breker, each 15 metres high, which flanked the north façade of the building: at its west end Atlas supporting the heavens, at its east end Tellus supporting the Earth. Both mythological figures were chosen by Hitler himself. Giesler says that Speer was wrong to represent the Volkshalle as a symbol of World Domination (Weltherrschaft). Speer in his Playboy magazine interview states:

"Hitler believed that as centuries passed, his huge domed assembly hall would acquire great holy significance and become a hallowed shrine as important to National Socialism as St. Peters in Rome is to Roman Catholicism. Such cultism was at the root of the entire plan."

Nevertheless, Giesler remarked that Hitler never made plans for world domination and that to suggest as much is not only nonsense (Unsinn) but 'Speer Rubbish' (Speerlicher Quatsch).

In fiction
Robert Harris's 1992 novel Fatherland takes place in an alternate history in which Nazi Germany won World War II and in which the Volkshalle was actually built. Several of the book's scenes take place in and around it. Harris carefully used Speer's plans, with the building being depicted as being 300 m (1,000 ft) high. As depicted in the book, the building would indeed have had its own "weather", with the breathing and perspiration of 150,000 occupants precipitating in the high dome; but rather than considering this a problem, Nazi propaganda would boast of it. In a real-world corollary to the fiction concerning the Volkshalle, morning fog can roll into the Kennedy Space Center's immense Vehicle Assembly Building, leading to "clouds" being observed inside the building.

The Volkshalle appears in the alternate history novel In the Presence of Mine Enemies by Harry Turtledove, being used for the lying in state for the deceased Führer, Kurt Haldweim.

The Volkshalle 's image appears in the video game Wolfenstein: The New Order, in an alternate 1960s in which (like the Fatherland novel) Nazi Germany won World War II.

Computer-generated imagery is used to depict the Volkshalle in an alternate history Berlin in the TV production of The Man in the High Castle. Multiple scenes in seasons two to four take place inside various parts of the Volkshalle. Unlike most other depictions of the Volkshalle, it was shown to have housed the Führer 's Office and residence.

In the final scene of the video work Malka Germania by Yael Bartana, a computer generated model of the Volkshalle emerges from Lake Wannsee.

title: Volkshalle


text:
User:Thecharmedmuse

A Little About the Muse

 * AKA: Madeline Warr
 * Nickname: Maddy or Kitten
 * Location: Orange, Virginia
 * Age: nunya

Interests: Art (all types), cooking, belly dancing, parenting, attempting to grow things (so far without success if you don't count growing children), spirituality and religion, paranormal experiences, discovering new places, people watching, and listening to music...

Links
for artwork and writing: http://thecharmedmuse.deviantart.com/

title: User:Thecharmedmuse


text:
Yerma (opera)

Yerma is an opera in three acts by Heitor Villa-Lobos based on the tragedy of the same name by Federico García Lorca.

History
Yerma was commissioned in 1955 by an old friend of Villa-Lobos, Hugh Ross, the conductor of the New York Schola Cantorum, and by John Blankenship, at that time head of the drama department at Sarah Lawrence College. The original plan was that García Lorca's play would be translated into English by the Scottish poet Alastair Reid, but Villa-Lobos immediately began setting the original Spanish text. It was composed partly in New York, partly in Paris, and was finished in 1956.

Yerma was first performed by the Santa Fe Opera in Santa Fe, New Mexico, on August 12, 1971 (erroneously reported in one source as July 12), and repeated just once, on August 18. The Santa Fe premiere was produced by Basil Langton, choreographed by José Limón, with scenery by Allen Charles Klein. Paintings by Giorgio de Chirico were projected on the walls during the intermissions.

In 1983 the opera was staged for the first time in Brazil, at the Teatro Municipal in Rio de Janeiro, with Aurea Gomez and Benito Maresca, conducted by Mário Tavares, and in 1987 this Spanish-language opera was performed for the first time in a Spanish-speaking country, at the Teatro Solís in Montevideo. The title role was sung by the Mexican soprano María Luisa Tamez, supported by Brazilian tenor Benito Maresca and Uruguayan baritone Fernando Barabino. Staging was by Jorge Curi, and David Machado conducted. A concert version was presented from July 12–21, 1989 by Opera on the Move in the Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank's Latin American Festival, "Viva!", with Anna Steiger in the title role and Odaline de la Martinez conducting, while the European staged premiere was given by the Bielefeld Opera in 1991. The opera was given its second staging in Brazil at the Teatro Amazonas in Manaus in April 2010. The lead roles were taken by Eliane Coelho, Marcelo Puente, Homero Velho, and Keila de Moraes. Marcelo de Jesus conducted.

Reception
Despite the fact that it occurred twelve years after the composer's death, the Santa Fe premiere of Yerma attracted widespread attention from the press, not only from American publications like the New York Times and Newsweek, but also from several Swiss newspapers and the Brazilian daily, Jornal do Brasil, the latter no doubt because the opera was the work of the most distinguished Brazilian composer of his time.

Recordings

 * Villa-Lobos: Yerma. Mirna Lacambra Domènech, John Wakefield, Frederica von Stade, Theodor Uppman, Elaine Bonazzi. conductor: Christopher Keene. Live recording, August 12, 1971, Santa Fe. CD recording, 2 audio discs: analogue, 4¾ in., stereo. CDALD4442S]. Duluth, Georgia: House of Opera, n.d.

title: Yerma (opera)


text: Category:Operas by Heitor Villa-Lobos

title: Category:Operas by Heitor Villa-Lobos


text:
User talk:Slix

Please stop adding nonsense to Wikipedia. It is considered vandalism. If you were just trying to experiment, then use the sandbox instead. Thank you. --Kiand 23:30, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

title: User talk:Slix


text:
Talk:Freeman (Thirteen Colonies)

Comments
Clueless. --Wetman 23:33, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Freedom did not mean chaotic sodomy, or going about and doing as you pleased without any supervision by your peers, and if anyone did so, he also was severly punished or put to death."

Have removed this; inappropriately colourful language. Not sure how to rephrase it, or even if it should be in here at all. --Spudtater 19:11, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

 * You're just not sure; or you object to puritan idealisms?
 * You appear to personally object, as if someone were referring to your own life style: running around naked – as did the Adomites of the time – and having sex with whomever or what ever you pleased, as in the case of George Spencer in about 1641, New Haven Colony, CT who was hanged for beastialogy (sp?).
 * "Sodomy" here refers to a traditional chaotic state that has always been disapproved of by any governing power; especially atheistic Communist powers.
 * I'm just trying to express the fact that spontaneous gratification was not approved of, and being "free", per se, did not mean that THAT sort of thing was going to be allowed.
 * Please support your reasoning to delete.
 * WB2 07:47, 16 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Not sure if the inappropriate label applies anymore. I'm removing it. --TrustTruth 03:32, 1 August 2007 (UTC)

This article has almost no citations. I could put citation needed tags all over it, but that would look ridiculous. 66.92.71.94 (talk) 17:31, 27 June 2011 (UTC)

title: Talk:Freeman (Thirteen Colonies)


text:
Rupert, Quebec

Rupert is a village located about 10 kilometers NNW of Wakefield, Quebec, at the convergence of the Shouldice Road and Maple Drive.

On December 9, 1944, a fire destroyed the Rupert General Store. The article from the Evening Citizen (now the Ottawa Citizen) on that date reads: "Fire Razes Home And Rupert General Store. WAKEFIELD, Dec, 9 -(Special)- Despite a determined effort by neighbors to extinguish the blaze, a fire of undetermined origin destroyed the general store and home of Wes Shouldice at Rupert, Que, about five o'clock this morning.  No estimate of the damage could be obtained but the loss is said to be partly covered by insurance.  The fire started in the store and quickly spread to the home next door.  Immediately the blaze was noticed, residents formed a bucket brigade to combat the flames.  None of the stock could be removed from the store but several household articles were taken from the burning home."

Rupert has an ice rink, community center, and a library. It is served by a United Church located in the village.

title: Rupert, Quebec


text:
Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Democratic Labour Party (Trinidad and Tobago)/archive1

Democratic Labour Party (Trinidad and Tobago)
I've been working on this article for a few months and it feels fairly complete and I think it is decently written, so I thought I would take a shot at putting it up for an FAC. On peer review I got a request for the party logo, but I can't find the symbol in the online or offline sources available to me. Guettarda 23:34, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * Minor Objection- I would like to see more citations (sources) and in-text references. Otherwise, seems to be well-written, though I had to fix up a few grammatical mistakes. Keep up the good work! Flcelloguy 15:03, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Meighoo's work is fairly definitive (based on his PhD on TT politics) but I will look for some more refs. Guettarda 15:28, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Asking for references beyond those that have been used to write the article seems like intellecutal dishonesty to me. --nixie 03:11, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * In response to this I did find (and read) some additional sources which let me flesh out some parts of the article. Meighoo has his POV, Sudama another and Malik a third.  Of course, it would be wrong to just add refs and not material.  Guettarda 03:33, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I have to agree that just adding refs and not adding to the article would be unethical. However, what I was looking for was more references to verify all facts, make sure the article was balanced and NPOV, and make it more comprehensive. Now that the more references have been added and the article accordingly expanded/edited, I'm happy to support. Good work, Guettarda! Flcelloguy | A note? | Desk 21:29, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

 * Support. An additional photograph or two would make the layout more visually appealing, but I can understand if these are difficult to find. Details of the party's stances on specific issues (political position of Tobago vis-à-vis the "mainland", for instance) would also help, if available. Are there any membership statistics? Did the party have any auxiliary organizations (e.g., a "youth" group/wing, a "women's" group/wing, etc.)? This is already an excellent article overall, but details in these areas would help to better convey the DLP's impact on Trinidadian society. — Sesel wa  17:06, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Thanks. Good points - these things didn't really occur to me.  Guettarda 17:16, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * A lot of the context of global politics is beyond my expertice. I don't have the framework of knowledge to hang it on - I could repeat what sources say, but I wouldn't know what was POV or NPOV.  I have not found data on party membership.  Membership tends to be confined to activists and the like in Trinidadian politics.  I've done my best to address your concerns.  There's more material to digest, but never enough time.  Guettarda 03:33, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Support, comprhensive article on an interesting subject.--nixie 03:11, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


text:
Georges Creek (Potomac River tributary)

Georges Creek is a 17.6 mi tributary stream of the North Branch Potomac River in western Maryland. The creek has its headwaters on Savage Mountain near Frostburg and empties into the North Branch Potomac River at Westernport, all in western Allegany County. Along the Georges Creek Valley, there exists a series of small towns founded in the nineteenth century for miners' homes. The Georges Creek Valley is rich in wide veins of coal, once extracted by deep mines but still mined today through surface mining.

The creek passes through Borden Shaft, Midland, Gilmore, Lonaconing, Nikep, Moscow, and Barton on its way to Westernport. Some of the tributaries running into Georges Creek include Sand Spring Run, Winebrenner Run, Neff Run, Staub Run, Squirrel Neck Run, Elklick Run, Hill Run, Koontz Run, Jackson Run, Laurel Run, Butcher Run, Moores Run, and Mill Run.

title: Georges Creek (Potomac River tributary)