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Thebes ( Greek: Thíva is a city in
Boeotia, central Greece. It played an important role in Greek myths, as the
site of the stories of Cadmus, Oedipus, Dionysus, Heracles and others.
Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed a Mycenaean
settlement and clay tablets written in the Linear B script, indicating the
importance of the site in the Bronze Age. Thebes was the largest city of the
ancient region of Boeotia and was the leader of the Boeotian confederacy. It
was a major rival of ancient Athens, and sided with the Persians during the 480
invasion under Xerxes. Theban forces under the command of Epaminondas ended the
power of Sparta at the Battle of Leuctra in 371. The Sacred Band of Thebes (an
elite military unit) famously fell at the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 against
Philip II and Alexander the Great. Prior to its destruction by Alexander in 335
, Thebes was a major force in Greek history, and was the most dominant
city-state at the time of the Macedonian conquest of Greece. During the
Byzantine period, the city was famous for its silks. The modern city contains
an archaeological museum, the remains of the Cadmea (Bronze Age and forward
citadel), and scattered ancient remains. Modern Thebes is the largest town of
the regional unit of Boeotia.
History:
Mythic record:
For a discussion of the many mythical kings of Thebes and their individual
feats, see Theban kings in Greek mythology. The record of the earliest days of
Thebes was preserved among the Greeks in an abundant mass of legends that rival
the myths of Troy in their wide ramification and the influence that they
exerted on the literature of the classical age. Five main cycles of story may
be distinguished: The foundation of the citadel Cadmea by Cadmus, and the
growth of the Spartoi or "Sown Men" (probably an aetiological myth
designed to explain the origin of the Theban nobility which bore that name in
historical times). The immolation of Semele and the advent of Dionysus. The
building of a "seven-gated" wall by Amphion, and the cognate stories
of Zethus, Antiope and Dirce. The tale of Laius, whose misdeeds culminated in
the tragedy of Oedipus and the wars of the Seven against Thebes and the
Epigoni, and the downfall of his house; Laius' pederastic rape of Chrysippus
was held by some ancients to have been the first instance of homosexuality
among mortals, and may have provided an etiology for the practice of pedagogic
pederasty for which Thebes was famous. See Theban pederasty and Pederasty in
ancient Greece for detailed discussion and background. The exploits of
Heracles. The Greeks attributed the foundation of Thebes to Cadmus, a
Phoenician king from Tyre (now in Lebanon) and the brother of Queen Europa.
Cadmus was famous for teaching the Phoenician alphabet and building the
Acropolis, which was named the Cadmeia in his honor and was an intellectual,
spiritual, and cultural center.
Early history
Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed cist graves dated
to Mycenaean times containing weapons, ivory, and tablets written in Linear B.
Its attested name forms and relevant terms on tablets found locally or
elsewhere include (text) understood to be read (Ancient Greek: Thebais, i.e.
"at Thebes", It seems safe to infer that *T?eg?ai was one of the
first Greek communities to be drawn together within a fortified city, and that
it owed its importance in prehistoric days — as later — to its
military strength. Deger-Jalkotzy claimed that the statue base from Kom
el-Hetan in Amenhotep III's kingdom (LHIIIA:1) mentions a name similar to
Thebes, spelled out quasi-syllabically in hieroglyphs as d-q-e-i-s, and
considered to be one of four tj-n3-jj (Danaan?) kingdoms worthy of note
(alongside Knossos and Mycenae). *T?eg?ai in LHIIIB lost contact with Egypt but
gained it with "Miletus" (Hittite: Milawata) and "Cyprus"
(Hittite: Alashija). In the late LHIIIB, according to Palaima, *T?eg?ai was
able to pull resources from Lamos near Mount Helicon, and from Karystos and
Amarynthos on the Greek side of the isle of Euboia. As a fortified community,
it attracted attention from the invading Dorians, and the fact of their
eventual conquest of Thebes lies behind the stories of the successive legendary
attacks on that city. The central position and military security of the city
naturally tended to raise it to a commanding position among the Boeotians, and
from early days its inhabitants endeavoured to establish a complete supremacy
over their kinsmen in the outlying towns. This centralizing policy is as much
the cardinal fact of Theban history as the counteracting effort of the smaller
towns to resist absorption forms the main chapter of the story of Boeotia. No
details of the earlier history of Thebes have been preserved, except that it
was governed by a land-holding aristocracy who safeguarded their integrity by
rigid statutes about the ownership of property and its transmission over time.
Archaic and classical periods:
As attested already in Homer's Iliad, Thebes was often called "Seven-Gated
Thebes" to distinguish it from "Hundred-Gated Thebes" in Egypt
(Iliad, IX.383). In the late 6th century, the Thebans were brought for the
first time into hostile contact with the Athenians, who helped the small
village of Plataea to maintain its independence against them, and in 506
repelled an inroad into Attica. The aversion to Athens best serves to explain
the apparently unpatriotic attitude which Thebes displayed during the Persian
invasion of Greece (480–479 ). Though a contingent of 400 was sent to
Thermopylae and remained there with Leonidas before being defeated alongside
the Spartans, the governing aristocracy soon after joined King Xerxes I of
Persia with great readiness and fought zealously on his behalf at the Battle of
Plataea in 479 . The victorious Greeks
subsequently punished Thebes by depriving it of the presidency of the Boeotian
League and an attempt by the Spartans to expel it from the Delphic amphictyony
was only frustrated by the intercession of Athens.
In 457 Sparta, needing a counterpoise against Athens in central Greece,
reversed her policy and reinstated Thebes as the dominant power in Boeotia. The
great citadel of Cadmea served this purpose well by holding out as a base of
resistance when the Athenians overran and occupied the rest of the country
(457–447 ). In the
Peloponnesian
War, the Thebans, embittered by the support that Athens gave to the smaller
Boeotian towns, and especially to Plataea, which they vainly attempted to
reduce in 431, were firm allies of Sparta, which in turn helped them to besiege
Plataea and allowed them to destroy the town after its capture in 427. In 424 ,
at the head of the Boeotian levy, they inflicted a severe defeat on an invading
force of Athenians at the Battle of Delium,
and for the first time displayed the effects of that firm military organization
that eventually raised them to predominant power in Greece.
After the downfall of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War, the Thebans,
having learned that Sparta intended to protect the states that Thebes desired
to annex, broke off the alliance. In 404, they had urged the complete
destruction of Athens; yet, in 403 , they secretly supported the restoration of
its democracy in order to find in it a counterpoise against Sparta. A few years
later, influenced perhaps in part by Persian gold, they formed the nucleus of
the league against Sparta. At the Battle of Haliartus (395 ) and the Battle of
Coronea (394), they again proved their
rising military capacity by standing their ground against the Spartans. The
result of the war was especially disastrous to Thebes, as the general
settlement of 387 stipulated the complete autonomy of all Greek towns and so
withdrew the other Boeotians from its political control.
Its power was further curtailed in 382 , when a Spartan force occupied the
citadel by a treacherous coup-de-main. Three years later, the Spartan garrison
was expelled and a democratic constitution was set up in place of the
traditional oligarchy. In the consequent wars with Sparta, the Theban army,
trained and led by Epaminondas and
Pelopidas, proved itself
formidable (see also: Sacred Band of Thebes). Years of desultory fighting, in
which Thebes established its control over all Boeotia, culminated in 371 in a
remarkable victory over the Spartans at Leuctra. The winners were hailed throughout
Greece as champions of the oppressed. They carried their arms into Peloponnesus
and at the head of a large coalition, permanently crippled the power of Sparta,
in part by freeing many helot slaves, the basis of the Spartan economy. Similar
expeditions were sent to Thessaly and Macedon to regulate the affairs of those
regions.
Decline and destruction:
However, the predominance of Thebes was short-lived, as the states that it
protected refused to subject themselves permanently to its control. Thebes
renewed rivalry with Athens, who had joined with them in 395 in fear of Sparta,
but since 387 had endeavored to maintain the balance of power against its ally,
prevented the formation of a Theban empire. With the death of Epaminondas at
the Battle of Mantinea in 362, the city
sank again to the position of a secondary power.
In the Third Sacred War (356—346 ) with
its neighbor Phocis, Thebes lost its predominance in central Greece. By asking
Philip II of
Macedon to crush the Phocians, Thebes extended the former's power within
dangerous proximity to its frontiers. The revulsion of popular feeling in
Thebes was expressed in 338 by the orator Demosthenes, who persuaded Thebes to
join Athens in a final attempt to bar Philip's advance on Attica. The Theban
contingent lost the decisive battle of
Chaeronea and along with it every hope of reassuming control over Greece.
Philip was content to deprive Thebes of its dominion over Boeotia; but an
unsuccessful revolt in 335 against his son Alexander the Great while he was
campaigning in the north was punished by Alexander and his Greek allies with
the destruction of the city (except, according to tradition, the house of the
poet Pindar and the temples), and its territory divided between the other
Boeotian cities. Moreover, the Thebans themselves were sold into slavery.
Alexander spared only priests, leaders of the pro-Macedonian party and
descendants of Pindar. The end of Thebes cowed Athens into submission.
According to Plutarch, a special Athenian embassy, led by Phocion, an opponent
of the anti-Macedonian faction, was able to persuade Alexander to give up his
demands for the exile of leaders of the anti-Macedonian party, and most
particularly Demosthenes and not sell the people into slavery.
Hellenistic and Roman periods:
Ancient writings tend to treat Alexander's destruction of Thebes as excessive.
Plutarch, however, writes that Alexander grieved after his excess, granting
them any request of favors, and advising they pay attention to the invasion of
Asia, and that if he failed, Thebes might once again become the ruling
city-state. Although Thebes had traditionally been antagonistic to whichever
state led the Greek world, siding with the Persians when they invaded against
the Athenian-Spartan alliance, siding with Sparta when Athens seemed
omnipotent, and famously derailing the Spartan invasion of Persia by Agesilaus.
Alexander's father Philip had been raised in Thebes, albeit as a hostage, and
had learnt much of the art of war from Pelopidas. Philip had honoured this
fact, always seeking alliances with the Boeotians, even in the lead-up to
Chaeronea. Thebes was also revered as the most ancient of Greek cities, with a
history of over 1,000 years. Plutarch relates that, during his later conquests,
whenever Alexander came across a former Theban, he would attempt to redress his
destruction of Thebes with favours to that individual.
Restoration by Cassander:
Following Alexander the Great's death in 323 , Thebes was re-established in 315
by Alexander's successor, Cassander. In restoring Thebes, Cassander sought to
rectify the perceived wrongs of Alexander - a gesture of generosity that earned
Cassander much goodwill throughout Greece. In addition to currying favor with
the Athenians and many of the Peloponnesian states, Cassander's restoration of
Thebes provided him with loyal allies in the Theban exiles who returned to
resettle the site. Cassander's plan for rebuilding Thebes called for the
various Greek city-states to provide skilled labor and manpower, and ultimately
it proved successful. The Athenians, for example, rebuilt much of Thebes' wall.
Major contributions were sent from Megalopolis, Messene, and as far away as
Sicily and Italy. Despite the restoration, Thebes never regained its former
prominence. The death of Cassander in 297 created a power vacuum throughout
much of Greece, which contributed, in part, to Thebes' besiegement by Demetrius
Poliorcetes in 293 , and again after a revolt in 292. This last siege was
difficult and Demetrius was wounded, but finally he managed to break down the
walls and to take the city once more, treating it mildly despite its fierce
resistance. The city recovered its autonomy from Demetrius in 287 , and became
allied with Lysimachus and the Aetolian League.
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