Seven against Thebes is the third play in an Oedipus-themed trilogy produced by Aeschylus in 467 BC. The trilogy is sometimes referred to as the Oedipodea. It concerns the battle between an Argive army led by Polynices and the army of Thebes led by Eteocles and his supporters. The trilogy won the first prize at the City Dionysia. The trilogy's first two plays, Laius and Oedipus, as well as the satyr play Sphinx, are no longer extant. When Oedipus, King of Thebes, realized he had married his own mother and had two sons and two daughters with her, he blinded himself and cursed his sons to divide their inheritance by the sword. The two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, in order to avoid bloodshed, agreed to rule Thebes in alternate years. After the first year, Eteocles refused to step down, leading Polynices to raise an army of Argives to take Thebes by force....The bulk of the play consists of rich dialogues between the citizens of Thebes and their king Eteocles regarding the threat of the hostile army before their gates.

« Les erreurs sont les portes de la découverte » écrivait James Joyce. Quoi de mieux en effet que l'erreur pour montrer la mécanique des sciences. Non pas la supercherie ou la bévue, mais l'erreur, ou plutôt ce que l'on juge comme tel à la lumière des avancées ultérieures. Car Galilée à Florence, Newton à Cambridge, Lavoisier à Paris ou Einstein à Berlin, ancrés dans leur culture, pensaient correctement dans le cadre théorique de leur temps. Voyage à différentes époques et dans différentes disciplines, cet ouvrage est un merveilleux condensé de l'histoire des sciences... par l'erreur. C'est aussi la preuve qu'il faut mettre à l'honneur la capacité de se tromper.