Thebes (modern Greek Thíva), chief town of the nomos of Boeotia in central Greece, occupies the site of the ancient city of the same name.
Over a stone apsidal building of the early Helladic period (second half of third millennium B.C.) similar to the building of the same date at Lérna (see Argos, Lérna
) a Mycenaean stronghold was built on the site of "seven-gated Thebes".
The myth relates that Kadmos came from Phoenicia to Boeotia in search of his sister Europa, who had been carried off by Zeus, and about 1500 B.C. founded the fortress which was named Kadmeia after him. Around his royal dynasty there grew up the great cycle of tragic myths centered on such figures as Oidipous (Oedipus), his mother Iokaste (Jocasta), their daughters Antigone and Ismene and their sons Eteokles and Polyneikes, whose rights the Seven against Thebes sought to establish.
The site of Kadmos's palace, which was destroyed in the 13th century B.C., was later occupied by the Agora of Thebes and, according to Pausanias, a sanctuary of Demeter Thesmophoros. In the fourth century B.C. Thebes, under the leadership of Pelopidas and Epameinondas, became for a brief period the dominant power in Greece; but after a rising against Macedonian rule it was razed to the ground in 335 B.C. by Alexander the Great, who spared only the house of the great lyric poet Pindar (ca. 520-445 B.C.). Thereafter Thebes, which was destroyed on a number of later occasions, was a place of no importance until the 19th century, when it began to recover a measure of prosperity.
Station on the Salonica-Athens railroad line; bus services from Athens. Access to Salonica- Athens expressway 5km/3mi north of the town.
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