Characterizing Oidipous’s passion as “most savage”, “most wild,” or “most fierce” (ἀγριωτάτη) suggests that it is most uncivilized. It is to be associated with wilderness places like Kithairon, the trackless waste in which he was abandoned as an infant and in which he met and killed his father, the place lying between Thebes and Delphi of which the Chorus seemed to sing in its first great song. Delphi, then, stands as the antipode of savagery, of the wild and uncivilized, and of the godless. A city or a ruler that hazards the city’s wellbeing on mortal strength and commitment alone, a city willing as Oidipous is now to treat its prophets with fierce negation, is a city gone savage and thus a city demanding the gods’ aggressive intervention. [Ad] [Me] [Mg] [Aj] [Apa]