House of Labdacus
The trilogy of which "Seven Against Thebes" is the final play is called the House of Labdacus trilogy. Labdacus was a cousin of Pentheus [See Euripides' Bacchae] and grandson of Cadmus. His father was Cadmus' son Polydorus; his mother, Nycteis, granddaughter of one of the five surviving sown men (Chthonius). Labdacus' son was Laius, the father of Oedipus.Threnody
Threnody is a lamentation for the dead. In the "Seven Against Thebes" Ismene and Antigone sing the dirge after both their fratricidal brothers have died.Cadmeans
The people of Thebes are often referred to as Cadmaeans (Cadmeans) showing descendant from the city's founder Cadmus, an ancestor of Oedipus. In 7 Against Thebes the name of the city is not used.Tritagonist
The presence of Ismene in a spoken role presents a problem if the tragedy has only two actors. The first actor is called the protagonist, which comes to mean the main character or, often, the tragic hero. The second is the deuteragonist. The third is the tritagonist, but it isn't clear that Aeschylus used a third actor in theis play.
