Just a moment after the audience reaches its own conclusion that Oidipous is working from wrong assumptions about the god with whom he seems to be dealing, he questions whether someone taking an objective view of his circumstances would not rightly conclude (ὀρθοίη λόγον) that these must be the work of “some savage god” (ἀπ᾽ . at he isgodslationship between mortals (especially Athenians) is not savage. rking from a wrong assumption perly to the god' mὠμοῦ ... δαίμονος). Oidipous presumes himself to be the victim of a cruel deity. Understanding that it is he who is not thinking straight, the audience will find it very likely that he is wrong to ascribe his misfortunes to a god’s savagery. It will find such an ascription to be the height of impiety. While a god does indeed appear to be behind the terrible events occurring to him, this does not make the god savage. Oidipous’s error and the impiety it expresses should caution the audience not simply to repeat his mistake but to get to the root of the wrong assumption and so to begin to set back to rights the damaged relationship between mortals (including Athenians) and their gods. The inference that human suffering is an indictment of divine savagery is as impious as it is factually wrong, and it demands the god’s corrective action. Presuming from this syllogism that Athenians have been voicing criticisms of a similar nature, rather than taking the plague from which it is suffering as grounds on which to indict the gods for savagery, Athens should read it as a sign of divine action in response to other erroneous and improper inferences. [Gd] [Mpea] [P] [Aj]