Oedipus at Colonus sons, in the end Oedipus is accepted and absolved by Zeus. In the years between the play's composition and its first performance, Athens underwent many changes. Defeated by the Spartans, the city was placed under the rule of the Thirty Tyrants, and the citizens who opposed their rule were exiled or executed. This certainly affected the way that early audiences reacted to the play, just as the invasion of Athens and its diminished power surely affected Sophocles as he wrote it. The play contrasts the cities of Athens and Thebes quite sharply. Thebes is often used in Athenian dramas as
Oedipus Rex "knows" that Peter will do this, but readers would in no way suggest that Peter was a puppet of fate being "forced" to deny Christ. Free will and predestination are by no means mutually exclusive, and such is the case with Oedipus. The oracle delivered to Oedipus what is often called a "self-fulfilling prophecy", in that the prophecy itself sets in motion events that conclude with its own fulfilment. This, however, is not to say that Oedipus is a victim of fate and has no free will. The oracle inspires a series of specific choices, freely made by Oedipus, which