Loxias here named as the one to whom “all grazing lands are dear” is also the one who is inflicting the plague of barrenness upon the plant, animal, and human kingdoms in Thebes. The audience will understand, then, that far from being at sport with a female playmate, divine or mortal, Apollo’s temper was so provoked by what has been done both in town and in the surrounding wilderness that he felt compelled to bring disease upon the entire community in order to prepare for a proper cleansing. [P] [Apao] This suggests that a community’s citizenry shares in its rulers’ crimes against the gods through “its display of its ignorance about the gods and through its gross failure in attempting to appropriate mantic knowledge” (Segal, Tragic World, p. 194). [Mpei] [Aj]