Seeking to reassure her husband by offering proof that Teiresias’s charges can be set aside, Iokaste uses phrasing very similar to that used by Plato in Parmenides, a dialogue set roughly two decades before this play’s production. Assuming that the dialogue’s fictional date approximates historical circumstances, we may infer that Iokaste’s comment would have resonated at the crux of a debate with which the play’s audience was quite familiar and in which it must have been invested. One aspect of this debate was the postulate that a perfect and unchanging world could not come into contact with an imperfect and ever-changing world; hence, the domains of mortals and immortals can have no “share” in each other. [D] Where Plato represents the idea of sharing or participation by way of the verbs μεταλαμβάνω and μετέχω, both of which put the object noun in the genitive, Iokaste here uses ἔχω with genitive object but without prefix. Not only is Iokaste’s term more rudimentary than both of Plato’s, but she also reverses the polarity of contingent and absolute by making “mortal” a categorical neuter (τὸ βρότειον), thereby turning the multiplicity of finite human beings into a single abstraction. She has mistakenly converted the mortal domain of contingency into the absolute domain associated with the gods. A philosophically astute Athenian audience—one that has absorbed the lesson that Plato shows Parmenides and Zeno trying to teach the young Socrates—would find her formulation inept. Her philosophical naiveté has the advantage of making it clear, however, that the sophisticated philosophical debate into which she enters bears on an eminently practical question: Do mortals need to concern themselves with divine intervention? And more specifically: Do Athenians need to secure their city’s safety and success by obtaining instruction from the gods through a prophetic medium of communication such as the Oracle at Delphi? [Mi] To these questions, and in particular to the question regarding prophecy to which Iokaste here addresses herself, myth clearly answers in the affirmative. [Gm] One can, of course, dismiss myth, but when one does, one is obliged to find a substitute for it, and the difficulty Iokaste has formulating her (and Athens’) philosophy suggests that this substitution is exceedingly tricky. Even with the training such sophisticated thinking requires, it can be undermined by a meaningful prophecy, such as the insights Teiresias has just delivered and the complementary prophecies given Oidipous and Laios, all of which have already been realized. [Mpea] Their realization has simply not yet been recognized by the mortals on the scene in Thebes. What if the same were true of the prophecy about which Athens must have been concerned at the time of the play’s production, the one promising the god’s help to Sparta to obtain a victory over Athens? [Gt-a] Is the plague not a sign of that help? Like Athens’ advocacy of the philosophical position that there is no “sharing” across mortal and immortal domains, Iokaste’s argument trumpets erroneous thinking, impiety, and arrogance; it insults first the gods, then all, such as Teiresias, who serve as mediums for the gods’ communication with mortal men, and lastly those civic authorities like Kreon who reverence both the gods and their servants. [Mpea] [Md] [Mg] [Dc] Such an attack calls upon gods and those who honor them to put up a vigorous defense, and the audience, which cannot for a moment forget that in this mythic context Apollo is even now in this sentence actively at work to reveal that his prophecies have been fulfilled, will find it difficult not to approve that action. [Apa] Granted, the god’s task is proving to be an extremely challenging one—there is clearly something impeding interaction between mortal and immortal domains. [Dnc] [Dnp] It is therefore of particular interest to the audience to discover what might enable the interaction to succeed. [P] As for her assertion that there can be no communication between mortal and immortal domains—it puts Iokaste in the paradoxical position of arguing against the mythic truth that defines her existence. [Gm] Athenians making the same assertion may find themselves in a similarly awkward position; their commitment to the proposition that prophecy has no bearing on mortal action is contradicted by their participation in a civic festival that performs myth in honor of the god Dionysos. [Gt-a] Removal of this contradiction could be effected by consulting Delphi, but that would imply a willingness to take seriously the prophecy given Sparta. In light of the audience’s own judgment that (at least in the mythic context) either Apollo or those who support his intermediaries must rebuke Iokaste’s dismissal of prophecy, the prophesied Spartan victory would represent just such a rebuke of Athens. [Aj] [Mw] The audience will find itself in the paradoxical position of approving Apollo’s corrective action in relation to Iokaste and Oidipous but not wishing to acknowledge the necessity of his support for Sparta. [P]