La peste del tirano Edipo: política, medicina y desmesura

Abstract

This paper exposes the thematic relationship between politics and medicine which can be inferred from the Oedipus Tyranus by Sophocles. We can find the concept of excess (ὕβρις) as a common thread between both arts (τέχναι) as it is the cause of the wrecking plague in 430 BC Attica, just as it is formulated in the Tragic version of Oedipus̓ myth. We resort to the History of Thucydides to help us approaching Sophocles̓ tragedy from historiography and, thus, configurating Oedipus as a tyrant, conception linked to the theme of the aforementioned plague.