Aeschylus, Seven Against Thebes; Sharing power goes awry

The Story
Oedipus steps down from the Throne of Thebes and gives shared power to his two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, with them alternating the throne once a year. Eteocles does not follow through with this arrangement and keeps the crown. Polynices goes to Argos and raises an army to take Thebes by force.
Seven Against Thebes starts as the army from Argos arrives. Eteocles calls the people of the city to arms and to the defense of the city. Eteocles then names seven commanders, for the seven gates of Thebes. Polynices, splits his force to meet the defenders, and chooses to command one of them himself. When Eteocles hears this, he comes to meet him in single combat. We hear through a herald that the two brothers have killed each other and that the attack has been beaten back. We see the brothers body's being brought together as the family grieves around them.

Reflections
It is worth noting that this is the last play of a set of three focused around Oedipus but that it is the only one that survives.
Oedipus is stepping down, due to being dishonoured, but you have to wonder what he was thinking, setting both the brothers up as ruling Kings. It seems, to a modern reader, a rather unwise thing to do but I guess it is examples like this that make us think so...

Comparisons
To hear that the brothers mutually die seems fitting of a Greek tragedy: like that of the Prometheus Bound and, by contrast, to the anticlimax of The Suppliants, with the sisters safety inside the city.
We also see Argos in a different light than Agamemnon, as the supplier of the men to right a wrong, rather than the power struggles for the top job.

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