![]() ![]() ![]() Oedipus, one of the seven plays by Sophocles that have survived complete, is dated by scholars to around 429–425,1 though there is no conclusive evidence for this. Oedipus as the political ruler of Thebes through his marriage to the widow of the previous king is known as turannos in Oedipus without the pejorative sense we give to the word tyrant (although it could carry such overtones in Sophocles’ age). Tyrannus, a version of the Greek turannos which gives us the word tyrant, was used as a neutral term for a sole ruler who did not acquire power through hereditary descent from a king. Aristotle, writing nearly a century after the play’s fi rst production, refers to it as just Oidipous (the Latinized form of which is Oedipus), and the Tyrannus that came into the title may have arisen from a need to distinguish it from Sophocles’ later play, Oedipus at Colonus, that deals with Oedipus at the end of his life, after the events recorded in the earlier drama. Contexts Sophocles Oedipus the King, known also as Oedipus Rex (from the Latin ‘rex’ for king) and as Oedipus Tyrannus (from the Greek ‘turannos’ for ruler), is the best known of the ancient Greek dramas.
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