Oedipus (Euripides) defeated the Sphinx, earning for himself the newly vacant throne of Thebes and marriage to Thebes' newly widowed queen Jocasta. Periboea arrived in Thebes in a chariot that Oedipus had sent her as a gift, which had belonged to the previous king Laius and which Laius was riding when he was killed. Laius' servants would have recognized the chariot, thus realizing that Oedipus was the killer of Laius, and blind him as punishment for the deed. Creon might have been involved in the blinding. As yet, it would not have been revealed that Oedipus was the biological son of Laius,
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