Thebes

He went first to Thebes where he inquired of Ismenian Apollo (sacrifice is there the way of divination, as at Olympia), and moreover he bribed one who was no Theban but a stranger to lie down to sleep in the shrine of Amphiaraus.

No Theban may seek a prophecy there, for Amphiaraus bade them by an oracle to choose which of the two they wanted and forgo the other, and take him either for their prophet or for their ally.

Mys of Europus, however, snatched from them the tablet which they carried and wrote on it that which was spoken by the prophet, saying that the words of the oracle were Carian.

we took seven-gated Thebes, though the wall was stronger and our men were fewer in number, for we trusted in the omens of the gods and in the help of Zeus, whereas they perished through their own sheer folly;

He came once to Mycenae, not as an enemy but as a guest, in company with Polyneikes to recruit his forces, for they were levying war against the strong city of Thebes, and prayed our people for a body of picked men to help them.

be with me even as you were with my noble father Tydeus when he went to Thebes as envoy sent by the Achaeans.

Presently Thrasybulus set out from Thebes with about seventy companions and seized Phyle, a strong fortress.

And when they fled to Piraeus, they drove many of them away from there also, and filled both Megara and Thebes with the refugees.

And when they arrived in the district of Thebes, they encamped outside the city, near the gymnasium.

' For this reason, too, when later he was sacking Thebes, he left standing only that man's house, ordering it to be inscribed:

the wish both to settle the city and to gather into it as great a multitude of men as I could, and not only of the natives, but, had it been possible, by compelling other cities to come together as well — just as Epaminondas once settled Boeotia into Thebes, and Theseus Attica into Athens;

There was a man in Thebes named Epaminondas.

O Sun-god, you who cut your path in heaven’s stars, mounted on a chariot inlaid with gold and whirling out your flame with swift horses, what an unfortunate beam you shed on Thebes, the day that Cadmus left Phoenicia’s realm beside the sea and reached this land!

and he has come against these very walls of seven gates, demanding the scepter of his father and his share of the land.

Now when the Sphinx was oppressing and ravaging our city, after my husband’s death, my brother Creon proclaimed my marriage:

when ye are grown to men’s estate, the town beside Ismenus shall ye sack, avenging the slaughter of your dead sires;

while I myself may truthfully tell the praises of the son of Oedipus, that is, Polynices, for he was my guest-friend ere he left the town of Cadmus and crossed to Argos in voluntary exile.

Theseus, that they dared to die before the towers;

Arrian relates the same of the Macedonians, when they took the city of Thebes.

Alexander, upon the taking of Thebes, having, as a conqueror, forgiven the debt.

nor could Thebes any longer be deemed the original city, as its inhabitants had been sold by Alexander for slaves.

Now both Athens and Lacedaemon incurred the hatred of their subjects and were plunged into war and confusion, but in these circumstances it will be found that our city, although attacked by all the Hellenes and by the barbarians as well, was able to hold out against them for ten years, while the Lacedaemonians, though still the leading power by land, after waging war against the Thebans alone and …

For he conceived of his mission in terms so lofty that he was not satisfied with making up his army from all the men in private station whom he desired to have from each of the cities of Hellas, but even persuaded men of the rank of kings, who were accustomed to do in their own states whatsoever they pleased and to give orders to the world at large, to place themselves under his command, to follow …

nay, Argos and Thebes joined forces with him in the conquest of Egypt in order that he might be possessed of the greatest possible power to plot against the Hellenes, while we and the Spartans, although allied together, feel more hostile to each other than to those with whom we are each openly at war.

No, never will they win Oedipus for an ally, nor will good ever come to them from this reign at Thebes;

You have come to get me, not to bring me home, but to plant me near your borders, so that your city might escape uninjured by evils from this land.

No, I have been sent, aged as I am, to plead with this man to return with me to the land of Cadmus.

You went out and were on the point of marching into Thebes under arms, horse and foot, before ever Demosthenes had moved one single syllable about an alliance.

And when they set out on their return journey, he hired for them three span of mules, and escorted the ambassadors as far as Thebes, making the city ridiculous.

What brought you into Thebes was the crisis and fear and need of alliance, not Demosthenes.

Amphion of Thebes and Arion of Methymna were both singers, and both are the stuff of legend;

"And truly I seem to see two suns and a double Thebes," said one as he revelled to the idols, drunk with unmingled ignorance;

How skilfully, as your commander, he drew up your ranks at Thebes to face the whole power of the Peloponnese, how he slew Gorgopas in Aegina, what trophies he set up in Cyprus and afterwards in Egypt, how he visited, I might almost say, every land, yet nowhere disgraced our city’s name or his own—of all these exploits it is by no means easy to speak adequately, and it would be a great shame if my …

Again, with regard to the absence of honors at Thebes, I think I can express the truth thus.

Again, men of Athens, you must also consider well and carefully the fact that you have come into court today, sworn to give your verdict according to the laws, not of Sparta or Thebes, nor those of our earliest ancestors, but those under which immunities were granted to the men whom Leptines is now trying to rob by his law;

But if ever the city of Thebes should in anger seek to drive the the Bacchae down from the mountains with arms, I, the general of the Maenads, will join battle with them.

Already like fire does this insolence of the Bacchae blaze up, a great reproach for the Hellenes.

I, the son of Zeus, have come to this land of the Thebans—Dionysus, whom once Semele, Kadmos’ daughter, bore, delivered by a lightning-bearing flame.

Now there is an ancient legend among the race of Cadmus that a certain Lycus in days gone by was husband to Dirce, and he was king of this city with its seven towers, before Amphion and Zethus, sons of Zeus, lords of the milk-white steeds, became rulers in the land.

At the entrance of Heracles’ house in Thebes, before the altar of Zeus.

Who lived here in Thebes, where from the sowing of the dragon’s teeth grew up a crop of earth-born giants;

These founded Thebes with its seven gates, and built a wall all round it;

whereon he remained king of Thebes, in great grief for the spite the gods had borne him;

Antiphates became father of Oikleus, and Oikleus of Amphiaraos, who was dearly loved both by Zeus and by Apollo, but he did not live to old age, for he was killed in Thebes by reason of a woman's gifts.

Adrastus, on his return from the expedition against Thebes where he had met with disaster and had not by his own efforts been able to recover the bodies of those who had fallen under the Cadmean fortress, called upon our city to lend aid in a misfortune which was of universal concern, and not to suffer that men who die in battle be left unburied nor that ancient custom and immemorial law be brought to naught.

they seized the Cadmea in Thebes;

Shaft of the sun, fairest light of all that have dawned on Thebes of the seven gates, you have shone forth at last, eye of golden day, advancing over Dirce’s streams!

But since Victory whose name is glory has come to us, smiling in joy equal to the joy of chariot-rich Thebes, let us make for ourselves forgetfulness after the recent wars, and visit all the temples of the gods with night-long dance and song.

But whoever has good will to Thebes, he shall be honored by me in death as in life.

Phoebus our lord clearly commands us to drive out the defilement which he said was harbored in this land, and not to nourish it so that it cannot be healed.

Laius, my lord, was the leader of our land before you assumed control of this state.

O sweetly-speaking message of Zeus, in what spirit have you come to glorious Thebes from golden Pytho?

but representing that the barbarian, if he should again come against them, would not then be able to make his advances from any strong hold, as in the present instance he had done from Thebes;

Now Plataea is seventy stades distant from Thebes, and the rain which had fallen in the night made them proceed the slower;

and having lost a few of his own men in entering it, both saved the city, and from this daring deed was the first that received praise at Sparta in the course of the war.

While I was with Philip I demanded—and when I returned to you I reported that I thought it right—that Thebes should be Boeotian, and not Boeotia, Theban.

If now our people had thought it wise to speak out plainly to Philip, bidding him strip the Thebans of their insolence, and rebuild the walls of the Boeotian towns, they would have asked this of him in the decree.

Would it not, then, be monstrous treatment for me if I should be convicted when my accuser is Demosthenes, the paid servant of Thebes and the wickedest man in Hellas, while my advocates are Phocians and Boeotians?

at Thebes it is thick, and so the Thebans are dull-witted and robust.

or Amphiaraus, who is recorded as being older by one generation than the capture of Ilium, having been among the seven who marched against Thebes;

And Zethus and Amphion, the inventors of music, lived about the age of Cadmus.

Under Lynceus were the rape of the maiden and the founding of the precinct at Eleusis, and the husbandry of Triptolemus, and the coming of Cadmus to Thebes, and the kingdom of Minos.

Nay, when Alexander entered Thebes, we made you a free gift of a talent in cash;

Some of us spread the rumor that Philip is negotiating with the Lacedaemonians for the overthrow of Thebes and the dissolution of the free states, others that he has sent an embassy to the Great King, others that he is besieging towns in Illyria;