Casting himself as a planter of seedlings (φυτουργοῦ), Oidipous projects himself into an imagined scene altogether different from the one presented by orchards, fields, pastures, and homes blighted by his actions and attitudes. It is possible that Oidipous characterizes himself as a planter in order to heap scorn upon himself; while he meant to make the city more fruitful he now sees that he was all the while blighting it and his family—especially his children. But where he might be heaping scorn on himself, his language signals his rage to be directed rather against forces beyond his control. If he fully appreciated his own responsibility, surely he would turn first to the god to begin to make amends. He appears not to understand that by seeking to negate Apollo’s prophecy he, like Iokaste and Laios, sowed destruction for self, child, and city. The Athenian audience, knowing now to interpret Laios’ killing, the incestuous marriage between mother and son, and the blight on Thebes all as signs of the god’s response to disobedience and unwillingness to cooperate with him in meeting necessity, should be able to infer from the blight taking lives within its own walls and Sparta’s destruction of crops outside the walls that the relationship between Athens’ rulers and their “children” is similarly destructive. Athens shares with Thebes’ ruling family a commitment actively to negate prophecy rather than submit to any diminution of its autonomy. [Apa] [Aj] [P] [Md] [Mpea] [Mw]