The first is the prophecy received by King Laius of Thebes that he would have a son by Queen Jocasta who would grow up to kill his own father. Some of this tension is plain to see in Oedipus Rex, which hinges on two prophecies. During the fifth century B.C.E., however, when Sophocles was writing his plays, intellectuals within Athenian society had begun to question the legitimacy of the oracles and of the traditional gods. Oracles, priests who resided at the temples of gods-such as the oracle to Apollo at Delphi-were also believed to be able to interpret the gods' visions and give prophecies to people who sought to know the future. Prophets or seers, like blind Tiresias, saw visions of things to come. The ancient Greeks believed that their gods could see the future, and that certain people could access this information.
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