That the Chorus believes Laios’ prophecies to be fading suggests that, despite the passage of time, it has never ceased to entertain the possibility that the god will be found to have realized his prophecies; it either knows that Iokaste gave birth to Laios’ child or considers this to have been a possibility. When it learned, then, of Laios’ violent death at the hands of an unidentified person, this should have given rise to speculation around the killer’s identity and the possibility that the prophecy had been fulfilled, and when it learned just now that Apollo required the city even now to identify Laios’ killer, it must have supposed that this would be the child about which prophecy had long ago spoken, the offspring of Laios and Iokaste. Having heard moreover from Oidipous about the prophecy that he must kill his father and marry his mother, it should have been struck by the complementarity and inferred the possibility that Oidipous was the son of Laios and Iokaste, and that he had killed Laios and married Iokaste. Rather than fading, then, the ancient prophecies should be thundering into view. If they do seem to the Chorus to fade, it is not due to the lack of vibrancy but the citizenry’s inability or unwillingness to notice them. Given the strong parallel established between the Athenian audience and the Theban Chorus, the remark that prophecies are fading suggests a comparison with Athens, where the prophecy linked to plague was very recent, and therefore could not yet have begun to fade. If discussion about it was fading, this would have been due not to the passage of time, but a conscious effort to curtail it. [Apc] [Apa] [Md] [Mpei] [Mg]