The townspeople now address their prayers to the oracular report itself, as if it were an unseen being now present like a very god in their midst, an awe-inspiring power threatening to tyrannize the fearful citizenry, causing it to tremble in fear. The question proves to be rhetorical; the information it seeks can only be ‘Which god?’ to which it already has the answer. From this perspective it is apparent that the earlier prayers of the Theban suppliants have been answered—Apollo is now present in the shape of his “report.” [Apcma] This confirms what the audience will already have sensed about the god’s presence in its midst and the way in which that presence manifests itself in the characters’ speech. The townspeople, however, mean only the speech of the Oracle, which they regard as sacred and before whose power they quail. The Athenian audience would, then, have perceived a significant difference between the Thebans’ feelings of awed reverence for Delphic prophecy and its own skepticism and perhaps even contempt (as described by Thucydides) both for Delphic prophecy and the possibility of divine attendance upon its own suffering. [P] [Gt-a]