Some thoughts concerning the Epigonoi. Theyâre probably around the same age, maybe with Alcmaeon being the oldestâbut still the age difference wouldnât be too significant.
Specifically:
Aegialeus: itâs likely that he was born late, if we go by Statiusâs Thebaid where Adrastus was mentioned to be âlacked male issueâ by the time he married his daughters to Polyneices and Tydeus respectively (Thebaid book 1, 390â394). Had to say, this reason makes sense to explain why Adrastus wanted to marry off his daughters so eagerly. If so then Aegialeus was likely born after the time of the double marriage, and still old enough to beget a son before he went for war. Would he be at the age of eight by the time the first Theban War took place? (Might be younger though, since thereâs Achilles as an exampleâŠ)
Alcmaeon: he would be old enough to take heed of his fatherâs orders for vengeance, but not old enough to do that until about ten years later. Perhaps we may go with Orestes parallel and consider him to be around ten when the Seven went against Thebes, so heâd have the vengeance in his 20âs?
Diomedes: so I actually failed to identify any source for that statement on the wiki page for Diomedes. Nevertheless, Diomedes being younger than the rest of the group makes sense for BOTH the thing about people around him constantly reminding him of the his father and the war in Thebes AND the parallel of him being younger than most of the other Achaean chieftains by the time of the Trojan War.
Sthenelus: older than Diomedes, for sure. Old enough to father a son or two a few years before the Trojan War took placeâif Cometes was real, that is (if not, then Cylarabes having died without an issue probably means he could be born at any time which does not help with our calculation). Letâs say, he might be at least eighteen when he begot Cometes, and Cometes beingâŠwell, eighteen? When he consorted with Aegialeia (you see, another thing thatâs so fricked up is the age difference. If Aegialeia was a daughter of Aegialeus then maybe this makes someâŠsenseâbut she would be too young for Diomedes in that case; but if sheâs a daughter of Adrastus thenâŠitâs straight up two generations between Cometes and Aegialeia which is justâŠugh. Welp another reason why I donât acknowledge this wicked version of Aegialeiaâs story). We donât actually know the time gap between the Epigoni campaign and the Trojan War (again, that claim on Diomedesâs wiki page is unsourced), but if itâs five to ten years then Sthenelus would be ranging from 16 to 21 when he went for Thebes.
Thersandros: he might be older than Diomedes or about the same ageâputting his age between Aegialeusâs and Diomedesâs just in case.
Promachus: his father Parthenopaeus was young. Like, the youngest among the Seven against Thebes. Still, he was old enough to father a son before he left for war (again, letâs say itâs eighteen for the sake of calculation), and we donât really know when he did that. Letâs say the age when Parthenopaeus left for war ranges from 18 to 23: then Promachus would be around 10 to 15? Again being the youngest, perhaps?
Canât really decide the age for Amphilochus, Euryalus, Polydorus, Medon simply based on their lineageâŠ
Alright I expect this to be quite different from how everyone calculates their age so let me know if you have other theories!
