Focusing mainly on the Sophoclean tragedies Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonnus, but also considering other versions of the Oedipus myth and some of the iconographic documents relating to it, this article looks to show that the apotropaic element plays an important role in this mythic context. It suggests that the beliefs and practices through which the apotropaic value is expressed are rooted in the deepest grounds of the Greek Weltanschauung and related to conceptions of fate and the basic categories of Greek religious thought. Although many studies usually restrict its operation to this circle, the article argues that magic is just one of the fields in which the apotropaic code is expressed, and that the interpretation of this code requires the consideration of other discourses and the analysis of other aspects of Greek culture. In theatrical presentations of the Oedipus tale, the tragedy reveals the deepest meaning of the apotropaic with singular clarity.
Apotropaic; Oedipus; Myth; Tragedy; Sphinx
