CHAPTER IX.

Thebes. Kadmeia-gates and remains of the town. Character of the ancient and modern Thebans. Villages in the Theban territory. To Kokla, anciently Platea-ruins of the city-ancient arms. Mount Citharon. To Egypto-Kastro, anciently Eleutherai-ruins of the town-the Diodos Village of Kondoura. To Athens. Eleusinian Plain, The Plague. Arrival at Athens.

THE earliest inhabitants of this country were probably a half barbarous people. There are no remains which can be attributed to the Ectenes, Phlegyai, Aones, Temmices, Leleges, Hyantes, or Thracians, who, at different periods, occupied the country. It was known by the appellation of Kadmeis, until it was conquered by a Thessalian people, called Bootians, who gave it their name about 1,124 years before the Christian era. All Boeotia submitted to the Romans under Paulus Æmilius, after Perseus of Macedon had been taken prisoner.

The Kadmeia was joined to the lower town by Amphion and Zethos, to whom it was indebted for the name of Thebes, which it still retains with little variation. It is now called OnGa.1 Pausanias says that in his time the Acropolis was called enßas, not Kadmeia; but he contradicts himself in another place,3 when he says that Kadmos founded the city; which in his days still retained the name of Kadmeia.

According to Dicæarchus1 the Baotian capital was forty-three stadia in circuit. A few lines further he says it was seventy stadia. It

1 Thebes was anciently denominated either by the singular or plural number, as Mycena, Platææ, and several other places, of which Homer and Strabo afford frequent examples.

2 B. 9. c. 7.

3 B. 9. c. 5.

• Stat. Græc.

contained at least fifty thousand citizens, when it was destroyed by Alexander.

The Kadmeia does not appear to have been destroyed; but being garrisoned by Macedonians, maintained its pre-eminence over the surrounding country; and as the town was afterwards restored by Cassander,1 it probably long continued the capital of Boeotia.

Livy mentions a theatre at Thebes, which Plutarch3 says was built by Sylla. Strabo1 calls it a poor village; but Pausanias" describes its seven gates, six temples, two gymnasia, two stadia, an hippodrome, a theatre, and several statues and sacred fountains; but he says, that with the exception of the temples, the lower town was totally destroyed.

Dion Chrysostom speaks of Thebes as nearly deserted in the time of Trajan. Zosimus tells us, that Alaric, in his haste to plunder Athens, did not stay to attack Thebes, as he was aware that the execution of his projects would have been delayed by the strength of its fortifications. The salubrious purity of its air, the copiousness of its springs, the exuberance of its soil, and other associated advantages of its locality, probably preserved it at all times from a state of solitary depopulation.

It was a respectable place in the middle ages; Boniface, marquis Mont-Ferrat," who was duke of Athens, and Meyas Kupios, or grandsire of Thebes, and afterwards king of Thessalonika, gave it to Otho de la Roche, about the year 1205, who transmitted the sovereignty of it to his descendants, who probably kept it until the time of Mohamed the Second. It was taken after some resistance by the Catalans, in the reign of the Byzantine emperor Andronicus. It was also taken by Roger Normannus, king of Sicily.

7 Hist. de Constantinop. sous les Empp. Francois, b. 1. p. 23. Paris edit. See Continuatio Glyce Annal. ad Evers. usque Byzant. J. Leunclav. p. 267. 9 Niceta. Choniat. b. 2. p. 50. Paris edit.

Thebes, which is so interesting for its ancient history, retains scarcely any traces of its former magnificence; and the sacred and public edifices mentioned by Pausanias and others have disappeared. Of the walls of the Kadmeia a few fragments remain, which are regularly constructed. These are probably the walls that were erected by the Athenians, when Cassander restored the town. Here are also the lower parts of a circular tower, about ninety feet in diameter, constructed with stones approaching to polygonal forms.

Some imperfect inscriptions may be seen in different parts of the town, of which several are Latin; and I was assured, that some inscriptions are to be found in the pavement of one of the mosques. I anxiously applied for permission to copy them; but could not prevail on the Meschitgi, or mosque-keeper, to let me enter the Mohamedan temple.

It is difficult to ascertain with any degree of certainty the situation of the ancient gates of Thebes. According to Hyginus,1 Kadmos named them after his seven daughters, who were Thera, Kleodoxe, Astynome, Astykratia, Chias, Ogygia, Chloris: but the names by which they are commonly known in ancient authors, are Electris, Proetis, Neitis, Krenaia, Hypsistai, Ogygia, Homolois. This is the order in which they are enumerated by Pausanias, and it might be imagined, that he mentioned them according to their relative contiguity; but upon this supposition a difficulty would immediately occur. He says that the Electris faces Platea, and the Proetis, Euboea; the former must accordingly have been situated to the south-west of the town, and the latter to the east; and there must have been according to all probability two other gates in the intermediate space, both facing Attica. These were perhaps the Hypsistai and Kranaia.*

1 Fab. 69.

2

Apollod. b. 3. mentions the gate Onkais, omitting the Neitis.

3 Statius gives the same names to the gates of Thebes as Pausanias.

This is the position given to them in the topography of Thebes, by the celebrated geographer, Mon. Barbié du Bocage.

Neitis was no doubt the nearest gate north of the Electris, as it appears from Pausanias,1 that the way which passed through it led to Thespeia, by the temple of the Cabiri, the mountain of the Sphinx, and Onchestos. Homolois was probably the next north of Neitis, as it would in that case face the north-west. The Thebans entered this gate when returning to their country from Thessaly, and it took its name on the occasion, from Mount Homoloe in Thessaly, where their army had been stationed for some time.2

Admitting this arrangement of six of the gates, the last, which is Ogygia, must have been between the Homolois and the Proetis, towards the north-east.

Near the Electris was the temple,3 stadium, and gymnasium of Hercules; no traces of which remain at present. Near the Neitis were the temples of Themis, the Fates, and Jupiter Agoraios, and the monuments of Menoikeus, the probable situation of which is occupied by gardens, through which runs a small modern aqueduct. A tekkie with some cypresses about it, which is upon a rising ground in this direction, perhaps stands upon the site of one of the temples. Near the Homolois, and above the river Ismenos, was a hill sacred to the Ismenian Apollo.

I ascended a little eminence answering to this situation, but found it totally destitute of ruins, and occupied by a large Turkish sepulchre.

The gate Ogygia is not marked by any remains; near the gate Proctis was a theatre, a stadium, and a gymnasium, of which the two latter were designated by the name of Iolas, to distinguish them from those above-mentioned, which were named after Hercules. Here was also the heroic monument of Iolas, and the temple of Bacchus Lysius.

The stadium bore a resemblance to those of Olympia and

Epidauros. It formed a bank of earth to which the hippodrome was attached. With these data for my guide, I searched for the remains of the gate Proetis, in the road which leads to the capital of Euboea, and I found some large blocks of stone, and some foundations. A short way beyond which, near the village called Peri, a large artificial terrace is observed, on which was the stadium and the gymnasium. A flat space is seen in the immediate vicinity which appears to be artificial, and probably constituted the hippodrome, which was decorated with the monument of Pindar.1

The Krenaia, or gate of the fountain, is probably marked by some ancient foundations, at the south-east of the town. There is a square modern tower of considerable magnitude near this spot, but it was constructed with materials which some ancient buildings were pillaged to supply. The fount of Dirce was in this vicinity.

In the direction where the Hypsistai probably stood, are the remains of a gate, composed of a mass of small stones and mortar, lined with regular masonry. The style of its construction, and of part of a round arch which remains, shews it to be Roman, or even perhaps of the middle ages. Apollodorus, in his list of the Theban gates, mentions the Onkais, but not the Neitis; these were probably one and the same. Near this is the dry ditch of the Ismenos, or of the Dirce, and another mass of wall on the bank, with the remains of a bridge; for the Greeks built stately bridges over dry channels, and deified rivers in which no water flowed. The Ismenos has indeed less pretensions to the title of a river than the Athenian Ilissos, for it has no water except after heavy rains; when it becomes a torrent, and rushes into the lake of Hylika, about four miles west of Thebes. Plutarch says, that it was first called Kadμou Tous, the foot of Kadmos; and that it took the name of Ismenos from a son of

1 Mrnua, Pausan,

Pausan. b. 9. c. 8. See Kuhnius on this part of Pausanias, which appears deficient.