The Language of the polis in Oedipus at Colonus

If asked why I chose this topic I should have to admit that it was partly for my own pleasure, for the privilege of talking about a great play set in Athens in the city of its origin. I was also influenced by the fact that the πόλις has been attracting a good deal of attention recently, and this has raised methodological questions which relate interestingly to Oedipus at Colonus . Here after all is a play set in Attica, with Theseus as a major character fulfilling the traditional Athenian role of receiver of suppliants: we can safely assume that it had something relevant to say about the πόλις to the πολῖται who watched the first performance. 1 My main concern, though, is with the ways in which Sophocles causes contemporary meaning to be apprehended, rather than with exactly what that meaning (or those meanings) may have been.