When Oidipous says that he solved the riddle by hitting upon or meeting with a γνώμῃ, it is clear he must have in mind meanings such as “answer,” “idea,” or even “inspiration,” while his word suggests rather “opinion” or “judgment”–meanings that do not fit the situation. Given the unintended acuity of his previous remarks, the audience may well suppose that this word was chosen rather by the god. But what would he be trying to communicate? The first meaning that LSJ lists under γνώμη is “means of knowing: hence, mark, token.” What mark or token might have enabled Oidipous to find “man” as the answer to the Sphinx’s riddle (known to the audience from other versions of the story) about a creature that “goes on four in the morning (the infant crawls on all fours), two at noon (in the middle of their lives humans walk erect on two feet), and three in the evening (as they grow feeble humans aid their locomotion with a cane).” Oidipous bears marks on his ankles (this is discussed later in the play but may be presumed already to have been known to the audience) from injuries he received as an infant when his parents endeavored to put an end to his life by causing his ankles to be pierced and tied together with a thong before leaving him in the wilderness to perish, as a consequence of which the infant Oidipous did not go on all fours in accordance with human experience: he went on three. Later in the play we find that he is quite sensitive to the mention of his scarred ankles; he is clearly aware of the marks and the childhood mystery to which they point. If we further suppose that his injuries left him with a slight limp (later in the play the audience will be informed that as a young man he traveled between Delphi and Thebes with the aid of a walking stick), as an adult he proceeded on three limbs. Thus, at the moment when the Sphinx confronted Oidipous with her riddle, he must have been well aware that he represented an obvious exception to the rule. His scars, then, and the walking stick in his hand would have served as marks that set him apart from other men and so made him aware of the characteristics typical of “man.” The riddle, then, designed uniquely for him to solve, reveals the extent of his preparation to solve the riddle and thus to fulfill a clause of the prophecy that Oidipous was taking vigorous steps to invalidate. So, while Oidipous and the people of Thebes credit him with exceptional sagacity, the audience can now see that his victory over the Sphinx should be attributed to the far more impressive contrivance of a god in response to Oedipus’s impiously regarding himself as an exception to the rule that mortal men are subordinate to the gods. Considering the god’s successful realization of the prophetic utterances issued to both Oedipus and Laius despite their best efforts to negate them, the audience may now begin to understand that there is in fact no exception to these rules: no mortal stands above the gods, and no mortal can negate a god’s prophetic word. This distinction between mortals and gods in relation to their relative powers and limitations now emerges as a far better definition of “man” than the one Oedipus used to solve the Sphinx’s riddle. [Apa] [Mpei]