Hippomedon

Argive prince of Adrastus's line. Apollodorus 3.6.3 names his father **Aristomachus** (with 'some say of Talaus' as a variant); Hyginus *Fabulae* 70 calls him **son of Mnesimachus**. Fifth of the Seven champions in the Apollodoran catalogue, third in Aeschylus's order at the gates of Thebes. Aeschylus *Septem* 486–525 puts him at the Onkaian gate facing Hyperbius, with a shield blazoned with Typhon breathing fire — answered by Hyperbius's shield of Zeus enthroned with a thunderbolt, the gate-pairing the Theban poet uses to figure the whole battle as a contest between hubris and ordered Olympian rule. Statius *Thebaid* 9.404–569 has him driven into the Ismenus by the Theban defenders and killed in the river itself: the river-god Ismenos rises against him in his own waters and the Theban Hypseus finishes him there.

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