Thebes

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.

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.

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.

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.

Then Leontiades came before the assembly and spoke as follows:

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

There was a man in Thebes named Epaminondas.

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;

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:

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!

Theseus, that they dared to die before the towers;

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.

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 …

And yet, after no great interval of time, the Lacedaemonians, to gratify Thebes, reduced the Plataeans by siege and put them all to the sword with the exception of those who had been able to escape through their lines.

Ismene:

Ismene:

Ismene:

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

Yes, but with walls of brass and steel, as he himself says, he fortified our land, by the alliance with Euboea and Thebes.

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.

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 …

What, then, are those honors?

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

I praise Kadmos, who has made this place hallowed, the shrine of his daughter;

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.

you will come to my city and her walls with cries of joy;

Break forth into dancing, you paved streets of our seven-gated city!

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

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;

and once they led a noble army of men to seven-gated Thebes—an expedition not attended by birds of good omen.

and because in seven-gated Thebes, beside Amphitryon’s splendid tomb, the Cadmeans gladly crowned him with flowers, for the sake of Aegina.

and the earth in Thebes, thunder-struck by the bolts of Zeus, swallowed up the prophetic son of Oicles, Amphiaraus, the storm-cloud of war.

In Thebes, when the seven pyres of corpses had been consumed, the son of Talaus spoke in this way:

and the prizes of the bronze shield in Argos and the works of art in Arcadia and Thebes are familiar with him, and the duly ordered contests of the Boeotians, and Pellana and Aegina, where he was six times victor.

Locrus gave him a city and a people to govern, and strangers came to him from Argos and Thebes, from Arcadia and Pisa, But among the settlers he chiefly honored the son of Actor and Aegina, Menoetius, whose son went with the Atreidae to the plain of Teuthras, and stood alone beside Achilles, when Telephus turned to flight the mighty Danaans, and attacked their ships beside the sea, to reveal to a …

Then he would tell you, Arcesilas, what a fountain of immortal song he found, when he was recently entertained by his host at Thebes.

For you I come from splendid Thebes bringing this song, a message of the earth-shaking four-horse race in which Hieron with his fine chariot won the victory, and so crowned Ortygia with far-shining garlands—Ortygia, home of Artemis the river-goddess:

yet they are said to have attained the highest prosperity of all mortal men, since they heard the Muses of the golden headbands singing on the mountain and in seven-gated Thebes, when Cadmus married ox-eyed Harmonia, and Peleus married the famous daughter of wise Nereus.

Creon:

Chorus:

Chorus:

Creon:

Chorus:

Chorus:

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.

Had not the Thebans already, suspicious of the situation, called out all their reserves and taken the field?

when the Theban ambassadors were standing by, and when it was plain that Philip was threatened with the hostility of the Thebans and Thessalians:

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.

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