Oedipus and the Sphinx
Oedipus reaches Thebes, solves the riddle of the Sphinx and frees the city from the monster's terror.
The Story
Thebes was being terrorised by the Sphinx.
The creature waited outside the city and challenged travellers with a riddle. Those who failed to answer were killed.
Thebes could not escape the threat.
Then Oedipus arrived.
He was already travelling under the shadow of prophecy. Earlier he had been warned that he would kill his father and marry his mother. Believing the people who raised him to be his true parents, he had left home in an attempt to escape that fate.
On the road, Oedipus had become involved in a violent quarrel at a crossroads and killed an older man.
He did not know that the man was Laius, king of Thebes and his biological father.
When Oedipus reached Thebes, he encountered the Sphinx.
The creature posed its famous question: what walks on four legs in the morning, two at midday and three in the evening?
Oedipus answered: a human being.
A person crawls as an infant, walks upright as an adult, and uses a staff in old age.
The Sphinx was defeated.
The precise manner of its death varies, but the threat to Thebes ended.
The grateful city rewarded Oedipus.
He became king and married the widowed queen Jocasta.
Oedipus believed that he had escaped the prophecy that had driven him from home.
In reality, he had fulfilled another part of it.
Jocasta was his mother.
Key Figures
Why It Matters
The Sphinx episode establishes Oedipus as a hero of intelligence rather than physical strength. His greatest triumph also unknowingly completes the conditions for his later tragedy.
Traditions & Variations
The wording of the Sphinx's riddle and the circumstances of Oedipus' encounter vary in ancient and later sources. The riddle itself became one of the most famous intellectual challenges in classical mythology.