Description of Greece

Of the successes and failures of the Thebans in battle I found the most famous to be the following. They were overcome in battle by the Athenians, who had come to the aid of the Plataeans, when a war had arisen about the boundaries of their territory. They met with a second disaster when arrayed against the Athenians at Plataea,[*](479 B.C) at the time when they are considered to have chosen the cause of King Xerxes rather than that of Greece.

The Theban people are in no way responsible for this choice, as at that time an oligarchy was in power at Thebes and not their ancestral form of government. In the same way, if it had been while Peisistratus or his sons still held Athens under a despotism that the foreigner had invaded Greece, the Athenians too would certainly have been accused of favouring Persia.

Afterwards, however, the Thebans won a victory over the Athenians at Delium in the territory of Tanagra,[*](424 B.C) where the Athenian general Hippocrates, son of Ariphron, perished with the greater part of the army. During the period that began with the departure of the Persians and ended with the war between Athens and the Peloponnesus, the relations between Thebes and the Lacedaemonians were friendly. But when the war was fought out and the Athenian navy destroyed, after a brief interval Thebes along with Corinth was involved in the war with Lacedaemon.[*](394 B.C)

Overcome in battle at Corinth and Coroncia, they won on the other hand at Leuctra the most famous victory we know of gained by Greeks over Greeks. They put down the boards of ten, which the Lacedaemonians had set up in the cities, and drove out the Spartan governors. Afterwards they also waged for ten years consecutively the Phocian war, called by the Greeks the Sacred war.

I have already said in my history of Attica[*](See Paus. 1.25.3.) that the defeat at Chaeroneia was a disaster for all the Greeks; but it was even more so for the Thebans, as a garrison was brought into their city. When Philip died, and the kingship of Macedonia devolved on Alexander, the Thebans succeeded in destroying the garrison. But as soon as they had done so, heaven warned them of the destruction that was coming on them, and the signs that occurred in the sanctuary of Demeter Lawgiver were the opposite of those that occurred before the action at Leuctra.

For then spiders spun a white web over the door of the sanctuary, but on the approach of Alexander with his Macedonians the web was black. It is also said that there was a shower of ashes at Athens the year before the war waged against them by Sulla, which brought on them such great sufferings.

On this occasion the Thebans were removed from their homes by Alexander, and straggled to Athens; afterwards they were restored by Cassander, son of Antipater. Heartiest in their support of the restoration of Thebes were the Athenians, and they were helped by Messenians and the Arcadians of Megalopolis.

My own view is that in building Thebes Cassander was mainly influenced by hatred of Alexander. He destroyed the whole house of Alexander to the bitter end. Olympias he threw to the exasperated Macedonians to be stoned to death; and the sons of Alexander, Heracles by Barsina and Alexander by Roxana, he killed by poison. But he himself was not to come to a good end. He was filled with dropsy, and from the dropsy came worms while he was yet alive.

Philip, the eldest of his sons, shortly after coming to the throne was seized by a wasting disease which proved fatal. Antipater, the next son, murdered his mother Thessalonice, the daughter of Philip, son of Amyntas, and of Nicasipolis, charging her with being too fond of Alexander, who was the youngest of Cassander's sons. Getting the support of Demetrius, the son of Antigonus, he deposed with his help and punished his brother Antipater. However, it appeared that in Demetrius he found a murderer and not an ally.

So some god was to exact from Cassander a just requital. In the time of Cassander all the ancient circuit of the Theban walls was rebuilt, but fate after all willed that afterwards the Thebans were again to taste the cup of great misfortune. For when Mithridates had begun the war with the Romans, he was joined by the Thebans, for no other reason, in my opinion, except their friendship for the Athenian people. But when Sulla invaded Boeotia, terror seized the Thebans; they at once changed sides, and sought the friendship of the Romans.

Sulla nevertheless was angry with them, and among his plans to humble them was to cut away one half of their territory. His pretext was as follows. When he began the war against Mithridates, he was short of funds. So he collected offerings from Olympia, those at Epidaurus, and all those at Delphi that had been left by the Phocians.

These he divided among his soldiery, and repaid the gods with half of the Theban territory. Although by favour of the Romans the Thebans afterwards recovered the land of which they had been deprived, yet from this point they sank into the greatest depths of weakness. The lower city of Thebes is all deserted to-day, except the sanctuaries, and the people live on the citadel, which they call Thebes and not Cadmeia.

Across the Asopus, about ten stades distant from the city, are the ruins of Potniae, in which is a grove of Demeter and the Maid. The images at the river that flows past Potniae. . . they name the goddesses. At an appointed time they perform their accustomed ritual, one part of which is to let loose young pigs into what are called “the halls.” At the same time next year these pigs appear, they say, in Dodona. This story others can believe if they wish.

Here there is also a temple of Dionysus Goat-shooter. For once, when they were sacrificing to the god, they grew so violent with wine that they actually killed the priest of Dionysus. Immediately after the murder they were visited by a pestilence, and the Delphic oracle said that to cure it they must sacrifice a boy in the bloom of youth. A few years afterwards, so they say, the god substituted a goat as a victim in place of their boy. In Potniae is also shown a well. The mares of the country are said on drinking this water to become mad.

On the way from Potniae to Thebes there is on the right of the road a small enclosure with pillars in it. Here they think the earth opened to receive Amphiaraus, and they add further that neither do birds sit upon these pillars, nor will a beast, tame or wild, graze on the grass that grows here.

In the circuit of the ancient wall of Thebes were gates seven in number, and these remain to-day. One got its name, I learned, from Electra, the sister of Cadmus, and another, the Proetidian, from a native of Thebes. He was Proetus, but I found it difficult to discover his date and lineage. The Neistan gate, they say, got its name for the following reason. The last of the harp's strings they call nete, and Amphion invented it, they say, at this gate. I have also heard that the son of Zethus, the brother of Amphion, was named Neis, and that after him was this gate called.