OEDIPUS, the central figure of the Theban saga (Gr. Oidi pous, probably "Swell-foot"). In Homer we are told that he un wittingly killed his father and married his own mother, Epikaste (the Jocasta of later writers), and that she hanged herself when the matter became known. Oedipus continued, though in great tribulation, to reign in Thebes, apparently until his death. (Odys sey xi. 271 et seq., Iliad, xxiii, 679). According to the post-Ho meric story, Laius, king of Thebes, received an oracle that his son should slay him; therefore, when his wife Jocasta bore a son, he exposed him on Mt. Cithaeron, with a spike driven through his feet. He was saved, however, and was adopted by the childless Polybus, king of Corinth. Reaching manhood, he had occasion to visit Delphi, where he was told that he would slay his father and wed his mother. Departing in great horror, and resolving never to return to Corinth, he met Laius, whom he did not recog nize, and killed him in a quarrel. Coming to Thebes, he found the city plagued by the Phix or Sphinx, a winged monster, usually represented with the head of a woman, who asked all passers-by a riddle, killing them if they could not answer. Oedipus solved the riddle, the Sphinx killed herself in disgust, and he was re warded, according to the promise made by the regent, Creon, son of Menoeceus, with the kingdom and the hand of his sister, the widowed queen. They had two sons, Eteocles and Polyneices. and two daughters, Antigone and Ismene. But later, the whole story came to light; Jocasta hanged herself, Oedipus put out his own eyes, and then lived shut up in a room of the palace (ordi nary version), or went into exile, ultimately dying at Colonus and becoming a protecting hero of Attica (Athenian version, see Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus). His sons proved undutiful and he cursed them. Therefore they quarrelled over the kingship, finally agreeing to reign alternately. Eteocles' turn came first ; Poly neices went into temporary exile, and married Argeia, daughter of Adrastus, king of Argos, whose other daughter, Deiphyle, mar ried Tydeus of Calydon. The latter had gone into exile for homi
cide; he and Polyneices met and quarrelled, and Adrastus recog nized them, by their dress or their shield-devices, as the lion and boar to whom the gods had bidden him betroth his daughters. At the end of a year, Polyneices claimed to rule Thebes in his turn; Eteocles refused, and Adrastus gathered an army to restore his son-in-law. The chieftains, besides the three already named, were Capaneus, Amphiaraus (q.v.), Eteocles, and Parthenopaeus, son of Atalante. Of these, known as the Seven against Thebes, only Adrastus returned. Tydeus would have been made immortal for his valour, but Athena saw him gnaw the head of a slain enemy as he lay dying, and in disgust withheld the intended gift. Amphiaraus was swallowed up in the ground, and in later times was much revered as an oracular hero or god. Polyneices killed Eteocles and was killed by him. Creon now became king ; he ordered the bodies of the dead Argives to be left unburied, but Antigone secretly buried her brother, Polyneices. For this, de spite the entreaties of his son, Haemon, to whom she was be trothed, Creon walled her up in a tomb (a form of ordeal ; the gods might save her if they approved of her conduct). She hanged herself, Haemon, who had broken into the tomb, killed himself, and so did Creon's wife Eurydice, on hearing the news (so Sophocles; in Euripides, Antigone escaped and lived happily with Haemon, at least for some years; see the fragments of his Antigone in Nauck). According to an Attic legend, Theseus (q.v.) attacked Thebes at the prayer of the mothers of the slain, and forced the Thebans to bury them ; Creon was killed by Theseus in the battle. Another story represents him as surviving for many years, to be ultimately killed by the usurper Lycus (so Euripides, Herc. Fur., 33). Oedipus died before, or not long after, the end of the war.