How long did oedipus rule thebes

Even the livestock are suffering. King Oedipus sends Creon to the Oracle of Delphi to find out what's going on. The Oracle, in her typically cryptic fashion, declares that the killer of Laius is living in Thebes and must be expelled. When Creon tells Oedipus this, the King swears that he'll figure out who the killer is and exile the jerk like nobody's business.

Creon suggests that Oedipus call in the help of Tiresias , the famous seer, who knows pretty much everything about everything. At first, Tiresias really doesn't want to tell Oedipus what's up, and the seer advises the king to stop seeking the truth.

Oedipus flips out and threatens him, though, and Tiresias finally tells the King that he's actually the murderer that he's looking for. Oedipus doesn't want to believe it, and he accuses Creon and Tiresias of being allied against him. Jocasta tries to comfort Oedipus, telling him that he couldn't be the killer because Laius was killed by robbers at a place where three roads meet. Meanwhile, a messenger shows up from Corinth to let Oedipus know that Polybus has died.

At first, Oedipus is relieved because he thinks this means he'll never fulfill the prophecy that he'll kill his father. The messenger totally bursts the King's bubble, though. It turns out that this guy is actually the shepherd who found Oedipus on the mountain and brought him to Corinth. So, now, Oedipus knows for sure that Polybus wasn't his real dad. Jocasta, remembering the prophecy that made her abandon her son, puts it all together at this point.

She begs Oedipus not to pursue the truth any further, but he insists. Next thing you know, the survivor of the attack shows up and confirms that Oedipus is the killer. In some versions, the survivor guy is also the dude who took baby Oedipus up on the mountain.

The whole truth comes crashing down on Oedipus like a ton of bricks. As if things weren't bad enough, Oedipus finds that Jocasta has hung herself. This makes him really go off the deep end, and he yanks a pin from her robe and stabs out his eyes. After this, Creon exiles Oedipus and the blind man wanders the wilderness with only his dedicated daughter, Antigone, to guide him.

Eventually, Oedipus and Antigone end up in a town called Colonus, which is just outside of Athens. Oedipus is broken and old, and he's been told by a prophecy that he's meant to die here in a grove dedicated to the Erinyes aka the Furies.

Just then, Ismene shows up and gives them some bad news from Thebes. It turns out that in Oedipus's absence, Polyneices and Eteocles have been sharing the rule of Athens. They'd agreed to switch off ruling Thebes every year. When the time came for Eteocles to step down, though, he refused and exiled his brother. So, Polyneices went off and married a princess whose dad had a big army, and now he's at the gates determined to take back the throne.

Creon shows up, representing Eteocles, and tries to convince the dying Oedipus to come back to Thebes to be buried, because a prophecy has said that wherever Oedipus is buried will be blessed. Polyneices shows up too and also tries to get Oedipus's blessing. Oedipus tells them both to buzz off. In some versions, he curses his sons to kill each other in battle, because he feels like they neglected him all these years, unlike his devoted Antigone.

Creon takes Antigone and Ismene hostage to try and force Oedipus to do what he wants. Just in the nick of time, though, King Theseus of Athens steps in and saves the girls. Theseus grants asylum to Oedipus, allowing the old blind man to die in peace. His body is buried in secret somewhere near Athens, and the city receives his blessing. Theseus refuses, though, saying that nobody can ever know where Oedipus is buried.

Antigone is super worried about the civil war between her brothers in Thebes, though, so she heads back home and Meanwhile, in Argos, Adrastus, king of Argos, had learned from an oracle that he must "yoke his daughters to a boar and a lion. He saw Polynices and Tydeus, an exile from Calydon, fighting.

One of them had a boar painted on his shield, the other a lion. Adrastus immediately recognized the true meaning of the oracle, stopped the fight, and married his daughters to them. He further agreed to restore them to their homelands, starting with Thebes. Adrastus summoned heroes from Argos to lead the campaign against Thebes. Meanwhile, the exiled Oedipus, accompanied only by Antigone, made his way to the Grove of the Furies at Colonus, territory under the control of Athens.

The inhabitants demanded that he leave before he defiled the grove, and they summoned Theseus, ruler of Athens. Ismene arrived, reporting on the fighting between Polynices and Eteocles, and she revealed that the Delphic oracle has declared that the city which possessed the bones of Oedipus could not be captured. Creon and Polynices both arrived to kidnap Oedipus, but Theseus made them leave, though not before Oedipus could curse Polynices.

He then withdrew, blessed his daughters, and vanished before Theseus. As Adrastus and the army approached Thebes, they sent Tydeus on ahead to try to talk Eteocles into abdicating the throne. He entered the city, defeated all the best Thebans at wresting, and killed all but one of the fifty men who were set in ambush to overwhelm him.

In the battle at Thebes, there were seven heroes on each side, and seven gates of the city. The Thebans learned from the seer Tiresias that only if Menoeceus, Creon's son, were sacrificed to Ares could they win the war.

Menoeceus gladly killed himself outside the city. The Thebans drew lots to determine which gates they would defend. Eteocles wound up defending the gate which his brother, Polynices, was attacking. The Thebans were soon forced from the battlefield into the city. One hero climbed atop the walls and proclaimed that even Zeus could not stop him. Shortly thereafter, he was struck by lightning. The tide of battle then began to turn against the Argives. Melanippus, one of the Theban heroes, dueled with Tydeus and both were mortally wounded.

Athena obtained from Zeus a potion of immortality for Tydeus, but Amphiaraus, still angry at him for favoring the war, knew what was happening. He cut off Melanippus' head and gave it to Tydeus, who, in his rage, scooped out the brains and drank down the blood. Athena saw this when she arrived and dropped the potion in her disgust. Tydeus died, and Amphiaraus fled the scene. He was about to take a spear in the back when Zeus opened up the earth and had him swallowed alive.

In classical times, a shrine was established there which housed his oracle. Eteocles and Polynices met in combat and killed each other. The battle raged on, and only Adrastus escaped death. There King Polybus and Queen Merope adopted him and raised him to think that he was their own son. When Oedipus was grown, however, someone told him that he was not the son of Polybus. Oedipus went to Delphi to ask the oracle about his parentage. The answer he received was, "You are the man fated to murder his father and marry his mother.

Like Laius and Jocasta, Oedipus was determined to avoid the destiny predicted for him. Believing that the oracle had said he was fated to kill Polybus and marry Merope, he vowed never to return to Corinth. Instead, he headed toward Thebes. Along the way, Oedipus came to a narrow road between cliffs.

There he met an older man in a chariot coming the other way. The two quarreled over who should give way, and Oedipus killed the stranger and went on to Thebes. He found the city in great distress. He learned that a monster called the Sphinx was terrorizing the Thebans by devouring them when they failed to answer its riddle and that King Laius had been murdered on his way to seek help from the Delphic oracle.

The riddle of the Sphinx was "What walks on four legs in the morning, two at noon, and three in the evening? This painting on the base of an ancient cup shows Oedipus and the Sphinx, a winged monster with the body of a lion and the head of a woman.

To rescue the people of Thebes from the monster's terror, Oedipus had to answer its riddle. Oedipus and Jocasta lived happily for a time and had two sons and two daughters.