It played an important role inGreek myths, as the site of the stories ofCadmus,Oedipus,Dionysus,Heracles and others. One myth had the city founded byAgenor, which gave rise to the (now somewhat obscure) name "Agenorids" to denote Thebans. Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed aMycenaean settlement andclay tablets written in theLinear B script, indicating the importance of the site in theBronze 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 ofancient Athens, and sided with thePersians during the480 BC invasion underXerxes I. Theban forces under the command ofEpaminondas endedSpartan hegemony at theBattle of Leuctra in 371 BC, with theSacred Band of Thebes, an elite military unit of male lovers, celebrated as instrumental there. Macedonia would rise in power at theBattle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, bringing decisive victory toPhilip II over an alliance of Thebes and Athens. Thebes was a major force in Greek history prior to itsdestruction byAlexander the Great in 335 BC, and was the dominantcity-state at the time of the Macedonian conquest of Greece. During theByzantine period, the city was famous for its silks.
The modern city contains an archaeological museum, the remains of theCadmea (Bronze Age and forward citadel), and scattered ancient remains. The Holy Church ofLuke the Evangelist is also in Thebes and contains Luke's tomb and relics. Modern Thebes is the largest town of theregional unit of Boeotia.
In 2011, as a consequence of theKallikratis reform, Thebes was merged withPlataies,Thisvi, andVagia to form a largermunicipality, which retained the name Thebes. The other three became units of the larger municipality.[3]
Archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealedcist graves dated toMycenaean times containing weapons, ivory, and tablets written inLinear B. Its attested name forms and relevant terms on tablets found locally or elsewhere include𐀳𐀣𐀂,te-qa-i,[n 1] understood to be read as *Tʰēgʷai̮s (Ancient Greek:Θήβαις,Thēbais, i.e. "at Thebes",Thebes in thedative-locative case),𐀳𐀣𐀆,te-qa-de,[n 2] for *Tʰēgʷasde (Θήβασδε,Thēbasde, i.e. "to Thebes"),[2][5] and𐀳𐀣𐀊,te-qa-ja,[n 3] for *Tʰēgʷaja (Θηβαία,Thēbaia, i.e. "Theban woman").[2]
Theban workshop (Oinochoe type), 7th century BC
*Tʰēgʷai 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 fromKom el-Hetan inAmenhotep III's kingdom (LHIIIA:1) mentions a name similar to Thebes, spelled out quasi-syllabically inhieroglyphs asdy-qꜣj-jꜣ-s, and considered to be one of fourtj-n3-jj (Danaan?) kingdoms worthy of note (alongside Knossos and Mycenae). *Tʰēgʷai in LHIIIB lost contact with Egypt but gained it with "Miletus" (Hittite:Milawata) and "Cyprus" (Hittite:Alashija). In the late LHIIIB, according to Palaima,[6] *Tʰēgʷai was able to pull resources from Lamos nearMount Helicon, and fromKarystos andAmarynthos on the Greek side of the isle ofEuboia.
The central area of Thebes, known as theCadmea, shows signs of destruction towards the end of the Mycenaean era and much of the site was abandoned. In the words ofRichard Hope Simpson, "The decline of Thebes after the end of the LH IIIB period recalls the Hypothebai (or "sub-Thebes") of the Homeric Catalogue of the Ships (Iliad ii 505), but we have no reliable indications as to where this residual "lower town" may have been located."[7] The Homeric Hypothebai may have been the seed of the Archaic and Classical polity of Thebes when the city was reestablished in earnest.[8]
As attested already inHomer'sIliad, Thebes was often called "Seven-Gated Thebes" (Θῆβαι ἑπτάπυλοι,Thebai heptapyloi) (Iliad, IV.406) to distinguish it from "Hundred-Gated Thebes" (Θῆβαι ἑκατόμπυλοι,Thebai hekatompyloi) in Egypt (Iliad, IX.383).
In the late 6th century BC, the Thebans were brought for the first time into hostile contact with theAthenians, who helped the small village ofPlataea to maintain its independence against them, and in 506 BC repelled an inroad into Attica. The aversion to Athens best serves[according to whom?] to explain the apparently unpatriotic attitude which Thebes displayed during thePersian invasion of Greece (480–479 BC). Though a contingent of 400 was sent toThermopylae and remained there withLeonidas before being defeated alongside the Spartans,[9] the governing aristocracy soon after joined KingXerxes I of Persia with great readiness and fought zealously on his behalf at theBattle of Plataea in 479 BC.[citation needed] The victorious Greeks subsequently punished Thebes by depriving it of the presidency of theBoeotian League and an attempt by the Spartans to expel it from theDelphic amphictyony was only frustrated by the intercession of Athens.[citation needed]
In 457 BCSparta, 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 BC). In thePeloponnesian 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 BC, 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 BC. In 424 BC, at the head of the Boeotian levy, they inflicted a severe defeat on an invading force of Athenians at theBattle of Delium, and for the first time displayed the effects of that firm military organization that eventually raised them to predominant power in Greece.
Silverstater of Thebes (405–395 BC). Obverse: Boeotian shield, reverse: Head of beardedDionysus.Map of Greece during the height of Theban power in 362 BC, showing Theban, Spartan and Athenian power blocks
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 BC, they had urged the complete destruction of Athens; yet, in 403 BC, 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 theBattle of Haliartus (395 BC) and theBattle of Coronea (394 BC), 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 BC 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 BC, when a Spartan force occupied the citadel by a treacherouscoup 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 byEpaminondas andPelopidas, 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 BC in a remarkable victory over the Spartans atLeuctra. The winners were hailed throughout Greece as champions of the oppressed. They carried their arms intoPeloponnesus and at the head of a large coalition, permanently crippled the power of Sparta, in part by freeing manyhelot slaves, the basis of the Spartan economy. Similar expeditions were sent toThessaly andMacedon to regulate the affairs of those regions.
The predominance of Thebes was short-lived, as the states that it protected refused to subject themselves permanently to its control. Thebes renewed its rivalry with Athens, which had joined with them in 395 BC in fear of Sparta, but since 387 BC had endeavoured to maintain the balance of power against its ally, preventing the formation of a Theban empire. With the death ofEpaminondas at theBattle of Mantinea (362 BC), the city sank again to the position of a secondary power.
In theThird Sacred War (356–346 BC) with its neighborPhocis, Thebes lost its predominance in central Greece. By askingPhilip 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 BC by the oratorDemosthenes, who persuaded Thebes to join Athens in a final attempt to bar Philip's advance on Attica. The Theban contingent lost the decisivebattle 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 BC against his sonAlexander 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 poetPindar and the temples), and its territory divided between the other Boeotian cities. Moreover, the Thebans themselves were sold intoslavery.[10]
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 byPhocion, 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.[11]
Ancient writings tend to treat Alexander's destruction of Thebes as excessive.[12] 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.[13] 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 byAgesilaus. Alexander's father Philip had been raised in Thebes, albeit as a hostage, and had learnt much of the art of war fromPelopidas. 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.
Following Alexander the Great's death in 323 BC, Thebes was re-established in 315 BC[14] byCassander, one of the diadochi who was ruling in Greece.[15] In restoring Thebes, Cassander sought to rectify the perceived wrongs of Alexander – a gesture of generosity that earned him much goodwill throughout Greece.[16] 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.[16]
Cassander's plan for rebuilding Thebes called for the various Greek city-states to provide skilled labor and manpower, and ultimately it proved successful.[16] The Athenians, for example, rebuilt much of Thebes's wall.[16] Major contributions were sent fromMegalopolis,Messene, and as far away as Sicily and Italy.[16]
Despite the restoration, Thebes never regained its former prominence. The death of Cassander in 297 BC created a power vacuum throughout much of Greece, which contributed, in part, to Thebes's besiegement byDemetrius Poliorcetes in 293 BC, andagain after a revolt in 292 BC. 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 BC, and became allied withLysimachus, the king of Thrace, and theAetolian League.
After the dissolution of the Boeotian League after theAchaean War of 146 BC, Thebes came under Roman rule. In 27 BC, the city was included in the newly established Province of Achaia. Thebes was assigned to theEastern Roman Empire after the imperial division of 395. During the earlyByzantine period it served as a place of refuge against foreign invaders. In the late 7th century,Justinian II created the Theme of Hellas with Thebes as the capital. The Holy church ofLuke the Evangelist was built around the 10th century to commemorate the saint's tomb and relics at the location of his death. During theByzantine–Bulgarian war of 913–927, Thebes was sacked bySimeon I of Bulgaria.
From the 11th century, Thebes became a centre of the new silk trade, its silk workshops boosted by imports of soaps and dyes from Athens. The growth of this trade in Thebes continued to such an extent that by the middle of the 12th century, the city had become the biggest producer ofsilks in the entire Byzantine empire, surpassing even the Byzantine capital,Constantinople. The women of Thebes were famed for their skills at weaving. Theban silk was prized above all others during this period, both for its quality and its excellent reputation. This prosperity made it a target for theNormans of Sicily. In 1147, they attacked Boeotia and plundered Thebes. They also captured skilled craftsmen and relocated them to Palermo to develop the sicilian silk industry. Nonetheless, the city quickly regained its prosperity, attracting Venetian merchants who negotiated advantageous privileges to purchase local silk from the imperial government.[17].
Benjamin of Tudela visited Thebes around 1161 or 1162. At that time, the city served as a regional administrative center, home to a local elite, a major producer ofsilk textiles, and an important regional market, all of which contributed to urban and demographic growth. Although there is no specific data on Thebes's overall population, estimates suggest it housed between 20,000 and 30,000 inhabitants, typical for a major Byzantine provincial city. Benjamin of Tudela reported that Thebes had aJewish population of 2,000, the largest Jewish community in any Byzantine city of the 12th century, except for Constantinople.[18]
In 1205, Thebes was conquered by the Latins of theFourth Crusade.
The Duchy of Athens and the other Greek and Latin states of southern Greece,c. 1210
Thanks to its wealth, the city was selected by the Frankish dynasty de la Roche as its capital, before it was permanently moved to Athens. After 1240, the Saint Omer family controlled the city jointly with the de la Roche dukes. The castle built byNicholas II of Saint Omer on the Cadmea was one of the most beautiful of Frankish Greece. After its conquest in 1311 the city was used as a capital by the short-lived state of theCatalan Company.
Latin hegemony in Thebes lasted to 1458, when theOttomans captured it. TheOttomans renamed Thebes "İstefe" and managed it until theGreek War of Independence (1821, nominally to 1832) except for aVenetian interlude between 1687 and 1699.
In the modern Greek State, Thebes was the capital of the prefecture ofBoeotia until the late 19th century, whenLivadeia became the capital.
Today, Thebes is a bustlingmarket town, known for its many products and wares. Until the 1980s, it had a flourishing agrarian production with some industrial complexes. However, during the late 1980s and 1990s the bulk of industry moved further south, closer toAthens. Tourism in the area is based mainly in Thebes and the surrounding villages, where many places of interest related to antiquity exist such as the battlefield where theBattle of Plataea took place. The proximity to other, more famous travel destinations, likeAthens andChalkis, and the undeveloped archaeological sites have kept the tourist numbers low. A notable portion of the inhabitants of Thebes areArvanites.[19]
The record of the earliest days of Thebes was preserved among the Greeks in an abundant mass of legends that rival the myths ofTroy 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 citadelCadmea byCadmus, and the growth of theSpartoi or "Sown Men" (probably anaetiological myth designed to explain the origin of the Theban nobility which bore that name in historical times).
The Greeks attributed the foundation of Thebes to Cadmus, a Phoenician king fromTyre (now in Lebanon) and the brother of QueenEuropa. Cadmus was famous for teaching the Phoenician alphabet and building theAcropolis, which was named the Cadmeia in his honor and was an intellectual, spiritual, and cultural center.
Thebes is situated in a plain, betweenLake Yliki (ancientHylica) to the north, and theCithaeron mountains, which divideBoeotia fromAttica, to the south. Its elevation is 215 m (705 ft)above mean sea level. It is about 50 km (31 mi) northwest ofAthens, and 100 km (62 mi) southeast ofLamia. TheA1 motorway and theAthens–Thessaloniki railway connect Thebes with Athens and northern Greece. The municipality of Thebes covers an area of 830.112 km2 (320.508 sq mi), the municipal unit of Thebes 321.015 km2 (123.945 sq mi) and the community 143.889 km2 (55.556 sq mi).[20]
According to the nearby weather station ofAliartos, Thebes has a hot-summerMediterranean climate (Köppen climate classification:Csa) with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters. During the winter months, Thebes is sometimes affected by theAegeansea-effect snow,[21] with snow depths reaching over 50 centimetres (20 in) on several occasions.[22][23] Due to its inland location, Thebes may also record very low minimums. In recent years, as registered by the meteorological station operated by theNational Observatory of Athens within the city limits, the record minimum temperature is −7.9 °C (17.8 °F), recorded on 10 January 2017.[24] In contrast, the city can be very hot in the summer duringheat waves, having reached a record high of 44.5 °C (112.1 °F) on 3 August 2021.[24]
Climate data forAliartos, Thebes (180 m, 1967–2001)
^Jacoby, David (2014). "Benjamin of Tudela and his „Book of Travels"".Travellers, Merchants and Settlers in the Eastern Mediterranean, 11th–14th Centuries. Routledge. pp. 160–161.ISBN9780367600624.
^Sasse, H. (1991). Arvanitika: die albanischen Sprachreste in Griechenland. Deutschland: O. Harrassowitz, p. 4
_-_2022-03-21_-_3.jpg)
%2c_a_Stunning_Depiction_of_Dionysos.jpg)
_-_1887.jpg)
