The Chorus adds luxury to the list of actions of which it appears to be critical. The audience will again find the charge to have no bearing upon Oidipous, who is not reputed to be living in ostentation, but everything to do with Athens, which under Pericles has been completing a magnificent building project on the Acropolis. Indeed, at the time of the play’s performance, the Parthenon’s sparkling new columns could be seen soaring spectacularly above the heads of the spectators as they sat in the theater of Dionysus. The Great Dionysia, the religious festival at which the competition of tragedians took place, itself provided a venue for the annual public display of gifts and tribute received by Athens from her client cities. If attachment to this sizable income had an influence on Athenian policy, especially its obstinate engagement in a war that might prove to be its undoing, then this was indeed a form of luxury that might (and in fact would) prove “ill-fated.” [Gt-a] [Md] [Mw]