In this essay, Zeitlin discusses autochthony in relation to Eteokles, as well as the structure and identity of his role in the play.

III. Mythos Polis/Genos: Autochthony/Incest

The climax of the drama, after the seventh shield, when the two codes, that of the city and that of the family, diverge, does not constitute a sudden reversal, as many have suggested, a substitution of one set of terms for another, but is rather the culmination of a process which has governed the logic of the text from the beginning. The relations of oppositions and homologies which underlie the text are strained to their limits by the inherent but unnatural contradiction of genos andpolis exemplified in the person of Eteokles who is always both the ruler of Thebes and the son of Oedipus. Thus the text resonates throughout in both registers, each voice dominant now in one...