Moving forward with utmost (and therefore damnable) caution, Oidipous seeks to have the witness newly arrived from the outlying regions of Thebes confirm the identification made by the Corinthian that he did once belong to Laios. Based on its familiarity with forensic interrogations, the audience will understand once the witness has been made to corroborate an indisputable fact, the prosecutor will be able to proceed to matters that are less clear. Thus Oidipous’s questioning continues to present a model of the best forensic techniques. [Mg] The interrogation, then, should make a fascinating test of the capacity for discovery afforded by these techniques. This continues to put the audience in a situation towards which it has some ambivalence; on the one hand it knows that Oidipous is being humiliated by the god, about which it will surely feel uncomfortable, but on the other hand, it is being treated to a display of virtuosity in a domain for which it has the highest regard, and it can only hope to see techniques that it highly prizes carry off an impressive success. Thus the audience wishes Oidipous a success whose consequences it fears, for those consequences indict the prosecutor, his procedure, and thus also the audience that values them. This ambivalence compels Athens to decide between acknowledging the god’s superiority or affirming its own virtuosity in the use of techniques it has developed, refined, and tested and in which it has the utmost faith. [P] [Mp] [Ap]