Miraculous births semidivine status in Sophocles' "Oedipus the King," where he was said to be the son of either Pan, Loxias, "or the Bacchants' god, dweller on the hilltops ..." and one of the nymphs of Helicon. But in Euripides' "Phoenissae," his mother, Jocasta, says Oedupus is the son of Laius, a mortal, who was warned by the god Phoebus not to have children. "King of Thebes for horses famed! seek not to beget children against the will of heaven; for if thou beget a son, that child will slay thee, and all thy house shall wade in blood." Laius ignored the
Laius not clear. Another theory is that the entire line of Cadmus was cursed, either by Ares when Cadmus killed his serpent, or else by Hephaestus who resented the fact that Cadmus married Harmonia, the daughter of Ares and Aphrodite, Hephaestus' straying wife. Certainly, many of Cadmus's descendants had tragic ends. Laius In Greek mythology, King Laius (pronounced ), or Laios () of Thebes was a divine hero and key personage in the Theban founding myth. Son of Labdacus, he was raised by the regent Lycus after the death of his father. While Laius was still young, Amphion and Zethus usurped