As the priest echoes Oidipous by referring to his fellow-suppliants as “children,” the audience might now see that the Thebans behave like figurative offspring and so implicate themselves in their “father’s” parricide, incest, and getting of abominable progeny. The priest having led the people not in supplication of a god, but of Oidipous, shows himself to be a priest of Oidipous, which makes his paternalism as inappropriate as that of the mortal he worships. Given that all of Thebes—ruler, people, and priest—is engaging in the same impiety, the plague appears to be the divine response of a justly offended deity. Given the plague in Athens and the audience’s inclination to admire Oidipous as the one who can be expected to provide best for the suppliants’ needs, it joins itself to the Thebans, thereby making of the Athenian plague a similarly just divine response. Thus, where moments before the audience found itself implicated in the townspeople’s expression of piety, it now finds itself implicated in their impiety. As it cannot have this both ways, it is compelled to decide between the two. [P] [Mw] [Mp]