In his final play, Sophocles returned to the ever-popular character of Oedipus, the blind outcast of Thebes, the utlimate symbol of human reversal, whose fall he had so memorably treated in the Oedipus Tyrannus. In this play, Sophocles brings the aged Oedipus to Athens, where he seeks succour and finds refuge, despite the threatening arrival of Kreon, the new king of Thebes. Oedipus' fierce character is in no way dimmed by his incapacity, and he refuses to aid his repentant son, Polyneices, in his coming attack on Thebes, in a way which manifests once more the old man's passionate temper. His mysterious sacral death at the end of the play, witnessed only by Theseus himself, seems to be the only fitting end for such an exceptional figure, for it transforms Oedipus into one of the 'powerful dead' whose beneficence towards Athens heralds a positive future for the city.

Adrian Kelly is Tutorial Fellow in Ancient Greek Literature, Balliol College, Oxford.