In Ancient Greece, there was great celebration called Dionysia, thrown in honor of the Greek God of wine and theater Dionysus, where many different people participated in theatrical events; this event spawned the Greek art of drama. After the birth of drama, many different skilled playwrights emerged and established well-respected reputations at the annual festival of Dionysia. Amongst the best playwrights were Aeschylus, a playwright who developed the dramatic form further by adding a second actor, and quite possibly the most well-known playwright Sophocles, who added a third actor to the stage. Dramatic plays had become grand outdoor spectacles that drew in audiences numbering in the thousands and each year the first place award was given to the playwright who produced the best plays; an award that Sophocles himself had won twenty-four times while also never placing below second place. Some of Sophocles' greatest plays were the Greek tragedies of The Oedipus Cycle, a trio of stories about how a man named Oedipus's cunning led him to become the king of Thebes, but an unrelenting search for the truth about his birth coupled with an irascible nature ultimately guided him to his demise.
At birth, Oedipus was prophesied to one day kill his father and marry his mother, which scared his parents into having one of their servants tie him up and leave him to die on Mt. Kithairon. Although, the servant could not bring himself to let the infant Oedipus die and instead took pity on him and gave him to the king of Corinth, Polybus, and his queen, Merope. Oedipus grew up under the care of his foster parents and after he left Corinth and began traveling, he stumbled into and unknowingly killed Laios, the king of Thebes and his long lost father. Oedipus then came across the city of Thebes, a city that had been plagued by the horrible creature know as the Sphinx, a monster with the body of a lion, the wings of a bird, and the head of a woman.
