Iokaste takes care to point out that the prophecy she is about to relate did not originate with Apollo himself, but with one of his servants—presumably a seer like Teiresias or the Oracle at Delphi. While this admission is presumably meant to express respect for the god by freeing him from blame for a failed prophecy, the audience will recognize that the distinction she makes between the god and his agents is a rhetorical nicety, for gods were not expected to engage in unmediated speech with mortals. Denigrating the god’s mediums expresses skepticism towards the institutions without which gods and mortals cannot be expected to communicate with one another at all. [P] [Dnc] Her separation of the god from his intermediaries leaves his integrity intact while isolating him from human interaction. This would have been the philosophical position held by those who argued that gods have no share in mortal affairs; they did not go so far as to argue the gods’ non-existence, nor did they insist upon a wholesale rejection of myth, religious institutions, or religious practices. Yet, Iokaste’s present effort to discredit Teiresias by altogether dismissing the possibility of prophecy via mortal intermediaries loses sight of the fact that if she succeeds, she undermines the project of cleansing the city of pollution and so relieving the city of its suffering. [Mpea] [Mw]