Oedipus is one the most famous figures of the Greek Mythology. His mother Iokastes is a descendant of the sown men that Kadmos grew out of the floor with the teeth of Ares’ dragon. The brother of Iokastes was Kreon and her husband was Laios. Laios should have inherited the throne of Thebes, but he got expelled from his land and went to seek shelter at Pelops house, where he was treated like a brother. However, he fell in love with Chrysippos, the most beautiful son of Pelops, and when the situation in Thebes got better, he took the boy with him to his kingdom.

The Gods did not like this and punished Laios by placing a Sphinx at the doors of his home city. Every time that somebody wanted to go through the door the Sphinx asked a question, and those who could not answer were immediately eaten. To stop this, Laios sent Chrysippos back to his father, but the Sphinx did not disappear and he was not being able to have children with his wife Iokaste. So he left to Delphi to find an answer.

But there he did not get any wise advice, since the Oracle just told him that he should be grateful not to have any children because he would die in their hands. More unmotivated as before, he came back to Thebes and did not want to hear anything else about children . But Iokaste could not stand being alone in bed any more and one night she made him drunk and they conceived their first son: Oedipus. When Laios found out what his wife had done he went crazy. As the child was born, he pierced through his little feet and gave the order to a servant to abandon him in the mountain. But the servant could not do it and, instead, he gave the baby to a shepherd. Then the shepherd brought Oedipus to the king Polybos of Corinth, who took him as an own son.

When Oedipus grew up, he saw that he did not look at all like his parents, so he went to see the Oracle of Delphi. This was the only time in all the Greek mythology that Pythia refused to give somebody an advise. With the words “you, miserable, you will kill your father and marry your mother”, she expelled him from Delphi. Of course, he did not want to harm his parents and, still believing that his family was the one in Corinth, he abandoned the city.

One day he met a member of a royal escort who treated him in a very unfriendly way. He was a strong but simple man, so he did not like this at all. As a result, they started a fight in which Oedipus ended up killing the king. Without knowing it, he had already fulfilled the first part of the prophecy: this king was his father Laios.

His next stop was Thebes. There he found the Sphinx that set him the following enigma: which is the creature that, having just one voice, sometimes it has two legs, sometimes three, sometimes four, and it is weaker when it has more legs, and stronger when it has the fewest. Oedipus answered straight away: Men. And after this the Sphinx jumped down the cliffs and the city got liberated. As a reward, Oedipus became the king of the city and married the Queen, his widow mother Iokaste, fulfilling then the second part of the prophecy.

Some time later a plague infected the city and he went to see the Oracle of Delphi again. This time he did get an answer, but this answer was that the murderer of Laios had to be punished. So they tried to find the murderer, but they couldn’t. To get a hint they asked the famous seer Teiresias for advice, who told them that one member of the third generation of the sew men had to leave the town… Oedipus. This meant that Oedipus had killed his father and was now living in sinful marriage with his mother… They asked then the old shepherd who took him as a baby in the forest, who confirmed all the story. When Iokaste found out, she could not believe it and she hung herself unable to bear this burden. Oedipus made holes in his eyes not to see his humiliation and left with his daughter Antigone to Kolono, nearby Athens.

On the other side, it was said that he would bring good luck to the city where he would die. For this reason, his sons Polyneikes and Eteokles stopped fighting for the power and started to search for him. When they could finally found him, he refused both of them.

After them it was Kreon, the brother of Iokaste, who tried to force him to come back to Thebes supported by an army. Oedipus asked the king of Athens Theseus for help, and ended up dying there -reason why the city got to be so important in the world history. Polyneikes and Eteokles continued their power struggle up to a point where they both encountered dead.

Finally the way was free for Kreon…