Capaneus

Capaneus (Greek Καπανεύς ) was one of the seven heroes in the expedition against Thebes, son of Hipponoos. His mother is either Astynome or Laodice. He is the father of Sthenelus.

Capaneus besieged either the Ogygische Gate or the Elektra Gate. At the storming of the city he boasted sacrilegious that he would even against the will of Zeus, overthrow the walls of Thebes, and even defy the lightning. But on the scaling ladder met the arrogant of Zeus lightning, a scene that was immortalized in sculptures and paintings. His wife Evadne, or Janeira plunged when he was placed on the pyre, even into the flames and was burned with him. In Stesichoros he is animated by Asklepios again.

He is one of the peripheral characters in the drama Antigone by Sophocles. In the surviving fragments of the Theban epics he does not come before.

In Delphi there was a founded by the Argives status of Kapaneos.

Capaneus also appears in Dante's Divine Comedy. In the third ring of the seventh circle of hell he is there punished along with other blasphemers.

Swell

• Sophocles Antigone 127ff.
• Euripides Phoenissae 1172ff.
• Euripides Supplices 860ff.