When Oidipous asks to be told precisely when the murder occurred, presumably because this will help to rule his involvement in or out, he requests that time be measured from the present, but Iokaste’s reply offers a shortcut that speaks directly to the proposition that Oidipous is testing, for instead of measuring with respect to the present, she measures in relation to Oidipous’s arrival at Thebes. The report of Laios’ murder “barely” (σχεδόν τι) preceded Oidipous’s arrival. Her description reduces the interval between the arrival first of the news, then of the man, to almost nothing. Her expression further heightens this impression by setting the instant of announcement against the full unbroken duration of Oidipous’s rule, as if it had no beginning and foresees no end. The succession of events from Oidipous’s approach along the road from Delphi, confrontation with the Sphinx before the city gates, successful solution of the riddle, acclamation as ruler, and marriage to the queen are all compressed into the single verb: “you appeared.” The order in which the sentence unfolds further distorts the sequence by suggesting the impossible: that when Oidipous appeared in the town he already had a firm group on its government. Iokaste seems not to realize the implications of the sequence as she portrays it. The close, apparently even overlapping, timing of Laios’ murder and Oidipous’s installation in power are a classic example of implied causality: post hoc ergo propter hoc. Ironically, where the inference from sequence to causality often indicates a logical fallacy, here it reveals a truth that Iokaste has not even considered: Oidipous’s installation in power was prepared for by Laios’ death. Upon reflection, the audience can see that Laios’ death was necessary to Oidipous’s installation in power, which was, if not necessary, instrumental in getting him married to Iokaste. Laios’ death is necessary, then, from two perspectives, each of which stems from a different prophecy: first, the prophecy that if he has intercourse with his wife and a child is conceived, he will die at that child’s hands; and second, the prophecy that he will marry his mother. Laios’ death at Oidipous’s hands serves the fulfillment of both prophecies. From the perspective of prophecy, it was doubly necessary. Since both prophecies are attributed to Apollo (and not, as Iokaste might prefer, to those merely claiming to serve Apollo), fulfillment of both prophecies upholds the integrity of the god’s word. Thus, what looks to Iokaste even in retrospect to have been sudden and inexplicable “appearings” of report and man, as if out of nowhere, to the audience both come directly or indirectly, or directly and indirectly, from Delphi. Both participate in a lengthy sequence of events crafted to make Oidipous Laios’ killer and arrange for his marriage to Iokaste. Rule over Thebes is from this perspective not, as Iokaste believes it to be, the last step in the sequence, but a necessary prerequisite to the fulfillment of prophecy. If the Athenian audience were to test this insight against its own situation, it would find itself prompted to consider that the accession to power of its own rulers (Pericles and those who support him) serves the needs of the god’s prophecy that he would give victory to Sparta and provide his unasked support to make this happen. From this perspective, the Periclean approach to Athens’ conflict with the other Greek city states was a necessary step to Athens’ defeat, and the defeat itself is not to be attributed to the decision to go to war, but to actions that predate that decision. What precisely, then, were those actions? [Apcma] [Ad] [Apa] [Dn] [Gt-a] [P]