Echoing the thesis she stated at ll. 708-9, Iokaste signals that she has concluded her proof, thereby prompting the audience to evaluate the strength of her argument, which depends entirely on the story she retails about a prophecy given her husband Laios, that he was fated to die at his child’s hands, but in the event he was killed by bandits, and the child meant to have killed him was, at less than three days of age, bound by the ankles and flung into the wilderness on the side of a mountain, where he perished. That prophecy’s two most significant details were therefore wrong, and since that one prophecy proved to be wrong, all mortal claims to prophetic insight are baseless. The audience will, however, have found flaws in three different aspects of Iokste’s argument: evidence, logic, and ethics. The evidence is insufficient, for the infant supposed to have died is now standing before the audience, and had Laios actually been killed by highway robbers, one of them might have been a child born to Laios and Iokaste. The logic is invalid, for one case of prophetic error does not invalidate all prophecy. Such an argument is morally bankrupt, because it makes a virtue of accepting and even arranging the death of a close family member, including an infant, rather than seek the god’s help to save them. Iokaste’s argument offers a detail that is not meant to serve as evidence, but that in fact permits the audience to develop a deeper understanding of the basis for meaningful interaction between gods and mortals. The detail is that the royal couple gave its infant offspring to a third party to expose to the elements. This, as we have already discussed (cf. m719) effectively placed the infant’s fate into the god’s hands. Iokaste’s certainty that the infant died is a index of her cynicism; she has never considered that, in placing her child in the wilderness, she was entrusting his fate to the gods. The audience, by contrast, can see that the child’s survival argues in favor of divine intervention on its behalf, or if not for its sake, then for the sake of the prophecy stipulating that that child must survive, because otherwise it will not be able to kill Laios. What means does the god have, then, to save the child? Iokaste could not be certain that the man tasked with exposing the babe would not pity it or that a passerby might not find it or that there might not be some other event leading to a miraculous survival. That the infant somehow survived, grew to manhood, and killed Laios proves, despite Iokaste’s certitude to the contrary, the validity of the one prophecy that she believes she most surely can discredit. By her own admission, it proves that Apollo has the capacity to bring his prophecies to fruition. [Apa] It shows Apollo and his servants to be merciful while their opponents are cruel. [Ad] [Md] It shows that his opponents underestimate his power and overestimate their own. It proves that mortal lives are not subject to the laws of chance, for even the slimmest possibility provides a viable opening for divine intervention. Because probability plays a role in nearly all human action, and because even the smallest degree of probability provides for divine intervention, the god is not subject to defeat by human efforts—even the most determined and ruthless. His prophetic word cannot be sabotaged. His stature cannot be diminished. Knowing himself capable of influencing the course of events grants the god a power greater than foresight, for what the god through the medium of prophecy declares will happen can be made to happen. A god does not simply know the future, he or she has the power to realize the future as he or she has described it. Mortals must consequently understand prophecy not as prediction but as commitment. Impressed by this new understanding of the god’s capacity and commitment to support his own speech, one should judge foolish, arrogant, and impious any mortal individuals or collectives who serenely believe themselves able to exclude divine interference from their lives. [Mpea] [P] Iokaste’s speech allows the audience to characterize the argument she makes, that one need not “worry” about the gods, as nothing more than a license to behave as one will. This unwitting self-indictment affirms the rule of divine justice. [Aj] It suggests that Apollo may, in a very subtle and complex use of double entendre, make use of a mortal’s argument against him to argue to the opposite conclusion. Here he can be observed to make a mockery of Iokste’s argument by example; he has used her argument to demonstrate the superiority of prophetic speech, mythic discourse, and omens to the reasoned speech of the assembly and the courts. [Mg] The play’s audience will thus be struck by the terrible irony that in making an argument to pay prophecy no heed, Iokaste serves the needs of prophecy. Not only does her speech enable the god working through her to show that it is untrue that no mortal has a share in prophetic arts; her speech demonstrates that any mortal, even one antagonistic to Apollo and his project, can be made to serve as a prophetic medium. This beings so, there can be no doubt that the god may, if and when he chooses, use willing institutional mediums such as the Oracle at Delphi to serve the purpose of communicating the requirements of justice and promoting mortal wellbeing. This is how Athens should now interpret Delphi’s response to Sparta. [Gt-a] The god is instructing Sparta to punish Athens on his behalf. If Athens thinks, as it obviously has been, to dispute the god’s judgment or to contest the god’s power to execute a sentence of punishment and correction, the city is as foolish as Iokaste. Like her, it can expect to be made both an example of the god’s power to execute justice and a mouthpiece for the god’s voice, proclaiming and demonstrating, even at the moment when Athens is most insistent upon its independence from the god, the god’s full power to subject any city to any project to which he is fully committed, including delivering justice to other Greek cities. The audience might now review its own public speech, using its experience with the play presently being staged as a model, to see whether it can detect instances of double entendre in support of divine justice, prophecy, and the god’s power to make good on it. [Gd]