Oedipus- Greek HeroHero"King of Thebes"

The Oracle and the Exposed Child

Before Oedipus was born, an oracle from Delphi warned King Laius of Thebes that his son would kill him and marry his wife Jocasta. The curse traced back to Laius's youth: he had abducted the boy Chrysippus, son of Pelops, and the gods punished the Labdacid line for it. To prevent the prophecy's fulfilment, Laius ordered the infant's ankles pierced and pinned together and commanded a servant to expose the child on Mount Cithaeron to die. From this wound came his name: Oidipous, "swollen foot."

But the servant could not bring himself to kill the baby. He gave the child to a shepherd from Corinth, who brought him to King Polybus and Queen Merope. The childless royal couple adopted the foundling and raised him as their own son. Oedipus grew up believing he was the natural heir to Corinth's throne.

The Road from Delphi

As a young man, Oedipus heard rumours at a banquet that he was not truly Polybus's son. Disturbed, he travelled to Delphi to consult the oracle. Apollo's priestess refused to answer his question about his parentage and instead delivered the prophecy that he was destined to kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus resolved never to return to Corinth, believing Polybus and Merope were his true parents.

On the road from Delphi toward Boeotia, Oedipus came to a narrow junction where three roads met: the Schiste, or "Split Road." A herald ordered Oedipus aside to make way for a chariot. When the old man in the chariot struck Oedipus with a goad, Oedipus killed him and all his attendants except one who fled. The old man was Laius. The sole surviving witness was the same servant who had been ordered to expose the infant years before.

The Sphinx and the Throne

Continuing toward Thebes, Oedipus encountered the Sphinx, a winged creature with a woman's head on a lion's body, which terrorised the city from its perch on Mount Phicium. It killed every traveller who could not answer its riddle: "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening?"

Oedipus answered correctly: man, who crawls as an infant, walks upright in the prime of life, and uses a staff in old age. The Sphinx threw herself from the rock to her death. Since Laius had recently been killed on the road, the Thebans offered Oedipus the vacant throne and the hand of the widowed queen Jocasta. He married his own mother and became king of the city where he had been born. Jocasta bore him four children: the sons Eteocles and Polynices, the daughters Antigone and Ismene.

The King Who Stayed

An older tradition tells a different fate. The gods revealed the truth, yet Oedipus remained on the throne. He suffered what the gods sent, but he did not blind himself and was not driven into exile. Jocasta killed herself, but Oedipus ruled on. When he died, he was buried at Thebes with funeral games so grand that heroes from across Greece attended. Homer's Iliad mentions these games. In Homer's telling, Oedipus died at Thebes with royal honours, not exiled as a blind beggar. The Oedipodea, a lost epic of the Theban cycle, followed this version: Oedipus married a second wife, Euryganeia, after Jocasta's death, and his four children were born to this second marriage rather than to his mother.

Discovery and Downfall

Sophocles told it differently. In the Oedipus Tyrannus, a plague struck Thebes, and the oracle declared it would not lift until Laius's murderer was found and expelled. Oedipus undertook the investigation himself. He summoned the blind prophet Tiresias, who knew the truth but refused to speak. Goaded by Oedipus's accusations of conspiracy, Tiresias declared that Oedipus himself was the killer he sought.

A messenger arrived from Corinth with news of Polybus's death and revealed that Oedipus was not his natural son but a foundling received from a Theban shepherd. The shepherd was summoned: the same man who had been ordered to expose the infant and who had witnessed Laius's death at the crossroads. Under pressure, he confessed everything. Jocasta understood the truth before Oedipus did and retreated into the palace.

Self-Blinding and Exile

Oedipus found Jocasta hanging from a rope in their bedchamber. He tore the golden brooch pins from her robes and drove them into his own eyes. His eyes, he said, should not see those they should never have seen, nor look upon those he longed to recognise. He demanded exile, to be cast out of the city whose pollution he embodied, but Creon insisted on consulting the oracle first.

Creon, Jocasta's brother, assumed the regency. In Euripides's Phoenician Women, Oedipus's sons locked him inside the palace and tried to bury his shame in silence. In the Sophoclean tradition, he was driven from Thebes and wandered Greece as a blind beggar, guided by his daughter Antigone. Every city shunned him as polluted.

Oedipus at Colonus

After years of wandering, Oedipus arrived at the village of Colonus, just north of Athens, and entered a grove sacred to the Eumenides. He knew through prophecy that this was his destined resting place and that his burial would bring divine protection to whatever land received him.

Theseus, king of Athens, granted Oedipus sanctuary despite the pollution he carried. Both of Oedipus's sons came seeking his blessing for their civil war over Thebes: Polynices, driven out by Eteocles, begged for his father's support. Oedipus cursed them both, prophesying that they would kill each other. When the moment of death arrived, a divine voice summoned Oedipus. He walked into the sacred grove, and only Theseus witnessed what happened. The gods took him. His body was never found, and his grave remained a secret known only to Athenian kings.

The Sons of Oedipus

Oedipus's curse proved as inescapable as the oracle that had governed his own life. Eteocles and Polynices quarreled over the throne, agreeing to rule in alternate years, but Eteocles refused to yield power when his term expired. Polynices married the daughter of King Adrastus of Argos and assembled six other champions to march on the city: the Seven Against Thebes. Each champion assaulted one of the seven gates. The war ended in single combat between the two brothers. They killed each other. Their father's curse was fulfilled to the letter: they divided their inheritance by the sword.

Creon assumed power and decreed that Polynices should be denied burial, left to rot outside the walls as a traitor. Antigone defied the edict and scattered funeral rites over her brother's body. She was condemned and sealed in a tomb alive. She hanged herself within it. Creon's son Haemon, betrothed to Antigone, killed himself beside her. Creon's wife Eurydice followed.