Sphinx- Greek CreatureCreature · Monster"The Riddler of Thebes"

The Riddler of Thebes

The Sphinx had a lion's body and the head and breast of a woman. Great wings grew from her back. Hesiod names Echidna and the two-headed dog Orthrus as her parents, making her sister to the Nemean Lion and the Hydra. Hera sent her to Thebes as punishment for the city's offenses against the gods. In Apollodorus, Ares dispatched her instead, furious over blood-guilt tied to an ancient crime of Laius.

The Muses had taught her a riddle. She chanted it from her crag on Mount Phicium, overlooking the road to Thebes, and travelers heard her voice before they saw her. Those who answered correctly could pass. Those who failed were strangled and devoured. She did not chase or hunt. She waited, and the road came to her. In the Phoenician Women, Euripides describes her snatching young Cadmean men and carrying them into the sky. No one solved the riddle. The roads emptied, and the city was strangled into silence.

The Riddle

The Sphinx's riddle:

"What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening?"

The answer is man, who crawls on all fours as an infant, walks upright in adulthood, and leans on a stick in old age. Every traveler who stood before the Sphinx carried the answer in his own body. Under the shadow of those wings, with death one wrong word away, no one found it.

The Greek Anthology preserves a second riddle: "There are two sisters: one gives birth to the other and she, in turn, gives birth to the first. Who are they?" The answer is Day and Night, both feminine in Greek, each born from the other.

The Siege of Thebes

Before Oedipus arrived, the Sphinx had reduced Thebes to desperation. Laius had been killed at the crossroads near Daulis, on the road to Delphi, murdered by an unknown assailant. No one in Thebes connected the king's death to the stranger who would later appear at their gates. With Laius dead and the Sphinx on the road, his brother-in-law Creon assumed the regency.

The city withered. Fields beyond the walls went untended. No merchant could enter or leave. The Sphinx needed no provisions and never tired, and every attempt to drive her from the mountain ended in death. Creon declared that whoever could answer the riddle would receive the throne and the hand of Queen Jocasta in marriage. The reward drew men from across Boeotia. Each climbed the road to Mount Phicium. None returned. Among the dead was Haemon, Creon's own son. The creature had seized and devoured him on the road.

Oedipus Confronts the Sphinx

Oedipus arrived at Thebes as a wanderer from Corinth, or so he believed. He had fled to escape a prophecy from the Oracle at Delphi: he was fated to kill his father and marry his mother. He did not know he had been adopted as an infant. He left Corinth to protect Polybus and Merope, the parents who had raised him.

His wanderings brought him to the crossroads near Daulis, a narrow place where three roads met. A chariot came toward him, and the old man riding in it ordered him aside, then struck him across the head with a goad when he did not move. Oedipus killed the old man and all his attendants but one. The old man was Laius, king of Thebes and his true father. Half the prophecy was fulfilled before Oedipus reached the city.

He heard of Creon's offer and the creature that guarded the road. Where others had climbed in dread, Oedipus went of his own accord. The bones of those who had failed lay scattered around the Sphinx's perch. She sat above him on the rock, wings spread, and posed her riddle. He answered: "Man." He did not know who his father was. He had already killed him at the crossroads near Daulis.

The Sphinx's Death

The Sphinx hurled herself from her perch. In Apollodorus, she threw herself into the chasm below the mountain. In Diodorus, she dashed herself against the rocks. The terms of her challenge allowed nothing else.

With the Sphinx dead, the road to Thebes lay open. Oedipus received the promised reward: the kingship and marriage to Jocasta, the widowed queen. He did not know she was his mother. They ruled together for years while the truth slept. When plague struck Thebes and an investigation into Laius's unsolved murder uncovered what had been hidden, Jocasta hanged herself in the palace. Oedipus took the golden brooches from her robe and drove them into his eyes. Blood ran down his face. He left Thebes in exile, led by his daughter Antigone.

Diodorus also preserves a different Sphinx entirely: not a monster but a bandit leader who held the mountain passes. In this version, Oedipus defeated her with an army, not an answer.