Amphion and Zet, becoming the owners of Thebes, decided to surround them with walls. It was very easy for them to do this because Amphion had a wonderful harp and played it so well that the stones shifted by the magical music rose and stacked themselves in rows.
Amphion married the daughter of Tantalum, Niobe. This couple had fourteen children - seven sons and seven daughters. Niobe was terribly proud of such a large offspring. She said that she did not understand how people can read Luton, who has only two children. Rather, they should honor her - a powerful queen and a blessed mother. Laton was hurt by neglect, and she complained to her children, Apollo and Artemis. They both immediately descended from Olympus and, with a few archery shots, exterminated all the descendants of Niobe. An orphaned mother left the Theban land. She returned to her hometown of Sipila. She sat days and nights on the mountain near the city until the gods turned her into stone. However, she then suffered. Tears flowed from a stone in which her soul was incarnated.
After Amphion and Zeta, the Theban throne occupied Laiya, from whom the generation of the most miserable rulers went. The oracle warned Laya that he would die at the hands of his own son, who would later marry his woman, Jocasta. Therefore, when their son was born, they pierced him with five iron spikes, tied him up and left him in the mountains. The shepherds found the child and carried them to the education of Queen Corinth, who did not have her own children. The boy had swollen legs due to punctures, and therefore he was nicknamed Oedipus - "a man with swollen legs."
Oedipus did not feel happy. Peers called him a foundling, and no one wanted to reveal to him the secret of his origin. Then Oedipus went to Delphi to the oracle. In the darkness of the sanctuary, he heard the voice of God, which warned him against returning to his homeland, because he would kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus, believing that his parents are a Corinthian royal couple, decided to settle elsewhere. However, on the way, he met a chariot in which an old, respectable man rode, surrounded by several close faces. This happened in a close mountain gorge, and the servant called out to Oedipus to leave the road. The noble young man did not obey. A quarrel and a fight arose in which travelers unknown to Oedipus died. Oedipus walked on, not realizing that the man in the chariot was Laya, his father.
In Thebes began to rule the son-in-law of the murdered king - Creon. But a few days later an amazing monster appeared in the mountains near the city, which abducted people and threw them into the abyss. It was called the Sphinx. He had a female face and chest, a lion's body and wings, like a bird.
The Sphinx said that it would then leave the Theban land when someone solved his riddle. The muse taught him this riddle, and its content was as follows: “What kind of animal, endowed with a voice, walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three in the evening?” In vain they called a council and a meeting: no one could give "The correct answer.” Deep mourning began in the city because the Sphinx abducted people daily. Then Creon announced: whoever will solve the riddle will receive the Theban kingdom and marry the widow of the murdered King Laius - Jocasta. It was on this day that Oedipus arrived in the capital. He thought all day over a riddle and went to bed in the evening, and he had a prophetic dream, who told him the correct answer. At dawn, he went to the Sphinx and said:
"A man walks in the morning, that is, in childhood, a crustacean; when he grows up, he becomes a two-legged animal, and in old age, which is the evening of life, he relies on a stick, a third leg appears to her. ”
Hearing this, the Sphinx plunged into the abyss.