In Greek mythology, Laius (Ancient Greek Λάϊος) was king of Thebes, son of Labdacus, husband of Jocasta, and father of Oedipus. Warned by Delphi that a son would kill him, he exposed the infant; years later Oedipus slew him unwittingly at a cleft road. Some traditions also make Laius the abductor of Pelops's son Chrysippus, a crime later linked to the curse on his house.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Laius" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Exile and restoration
After Labdacus died, the infant Laius was raised under the regent Lycus until Amphion and Zethus seized Thebes. Loyal Thebans smuggled the boy out; he found refuge with Pelops at Pisa in the Peloponnesus. When Amphion and Zethus died, he returned and took the Theban throne.
II.Chrysippus
According to Apollodorus, Hyginus, and related sources, while teaching Chrysippus to drive a chariot — or during the Nemean Games — Laius abducted and raped Pelops's son and carried him to Thebes. The episode was the subject of a lost Euripidean tragedy; later moralizing tradition sometimes cast Laius as the originator of pederastic rape. The crime is one explanation offered for the ill fortune of his descendants.
III.Oracle, exposure, and death
Laius married Jocasta, daughter of Menoeceus. Delphi warned him not to beget a child, or the child would kill him and marry his wife (Aeschylus has a version in which he can save the city only by dying childless). Drunk one night, he fathered Oedipus; on his orders the infant was exposed on Mount Cithaeron with pierced or bound feet, then reared at Corinth by Polybus and Merope (or Periboea).
Grown, Oedipus fled Corinth after Delphi foretold he would kill his father and marry his mother. At the "Cleft Way" he met Laius traveling to consult the oracle; after a quarrel over the road, Oedipus killed Laius and all but one attendant. Damasistratus of Plataea buried the king where he fell. Thebes later suffered plague because the murderer went unpunished — the seed of Sophocles's Oedipus Rex.