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 order to end a plague ravaging Thebes, unaware that the killer he is looking for is none other than himself. At the end of the play, after the truth finally comes to light, Jocasta hangs herself while Oedipus, horrified at his patricide and incest, proceeds to gouge out his own eyes in despair. "Oedipus Rex" is regarded by many scholars as the masterpiece of ancient Greek tragedy. In his "Poetics", Aristotle refers several times to the play in order to exemplify aspects of the genre. Many parts or elements of the myth of Oedipus occur before the opening scene of