Thiva Hotel
Recommended Hotels:
Nearby Locations: Athens hotel, Piraeus hotel, Volos hotel, Patras hotel, Karditsa hotel, Larisa hotel, Parga hotel, Pelion hotel
Related:
Thiva
Rent A Car
A few words about Thiva:
Thiva (Greek: ΘΗΒΑ) is a city in
Greece, situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia
from Attica, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain. In ancient times
it was the largest city of the region of Boeotia and the modern city still
contains the Cadmea (ancient citadel).
History
The record of the earliest days of Thiva was preserved among the Greeks in an
abundant mass of legends which rival the myths of Troy in their wide
ramification and the influence which they exerted upon the literature of the
classical age. Five main cycles of story may be distinguished:
The foundation of the citadel Cadmea by Kadmus, and the growth of the Sparti
or "Sown Men" (probably an aetiological myth designed to explain the origin of
the Theban nobility which bore that name in historical times);
The building of a "seven-gated" wall by Amphion, and the cognate stories of
Zethus, Antiope and Dirce;
The tale of the "house of Laius," culminating in the adventures of Oedipus and
the wars of the "Seven Against Thebes" and the Epigoni;
The advent of Dionysus; and
The exploits of Heracles.
For a discussion of the many mythical kings of Thebes and their individual
feats, see Theban kings - Greek mythology.
It is difficult to extract any historical fact out of this maze of myths; the
various groups cannot be fully co-ordinated, and a further perplexing feature
is the neglect of Thebes in the Homeric poems. On the other hand, these myths
cannot be entirely discarded, as shown by the recovery in the 1909 excavation
of the "House of Cadmus", whom legend states was born in Tyre and taught
letters to the Greeks, of a collection of Mesopotamian cylinder-seals,
including one referring to a Kassite king who ruled between 1381 and 1354 BC.
Further archaeological excavations in and around Thebes have revealed cist
graves dated to Mycenaean times containing weapons, ivory, and tablets written
in Linear B. It seems safe to infer that it was one of the first Greek
communities to be drawn together within a fortified city, that it owed its
importance in prehistoric — as in later days — to its military strength. As a
fortified community, it attracted attention from the invading Dorians, and the
fact of their eventual conquest of Thebes lie behind the stories of the
successive legendary attacks on that city.
The central position and military security of the city naturally tended to
raise it to a commanding position among the Boeotians, and from early days its
inhabitants endeavoured to establish a complete supremacy over their kinsmen
in the outlying towns. This centralizing policy is as much the cardinal fact
of Theban history as the counteracting effort of the smaller towns to resist
absorption forms the main chapter of the story of Boeotia. No details of the
earlier history of Thebes have been preserved, except that it was governed by
a land-holding aristocracy who safeguarded their integrity by rigid statutes
about the ownership of property and its transmission.
In the late 6th century BC the Thebans were brought for the first time into
hostile contact with the Athenians, who helped the small village of Plataea to
maintain its independence against them, and in 506 repelled an inroad into
Attica. The aversion to Athens best serves to explain the unpatriotic attitude
which Thebes displayed during the Persian invasion of Greece (480–479 BC).
Though a contingent of 700 was sent to Thermopylae and remained there with
Leonidas until just before the last stand when they surrendered to the
Persians[1], the governing aristocracy soon after joined King Xerxes I of
Persia with great readiness and fought zealously on his behalf at the battle
of Plataea in 479 BC. The victorious Greeks subsequently punished Thebes by
depriving it of the presidency of the Boeotian League, and an attempt by the
Spartans to expel it from the Delphic amphictyony was only frustrated by the
intercession of Athens.
In 457 Sparta, needing a counterpoise against Athens in central Greece,
reversed her policy and reinstated Thebes as the dominant power in Boeotia.
The great citadel of Cadmea served this purpose well by holding out as a base
of resistance when the Athenians overran and occupied the rest of the country
(457–447). In the Peloponnesian War the Thebans, embittered by the support
which Athens gave to the smaller Boeotian towns, and especially to Plataea,
which they vainly attempted to reduce in 431, were firm allies of Sparta,
which in turn helped them to besiege Plataea and allowed them to destroy the
town after its capture in 427 BC. In 424 at the head of the Boeotian levy they
inflicted a severe defeat upon an invading force of Athenians at the Battle of
Delium, and for the first time displayed the effects of that firm military
organization which eventually raised them to predominant power in Greece.
After the downfall of Athens at the end of the Peloponnesian War the Thebans,
finding that Sparta intended to protect the states which they desired to
annex, broke off the alliance. In 404 they had urged the complete destruction
of Athens, yet in 403 they secretly supported the restoration of its democracy
in order to find in it a counterpoise against Sparta. A few years later,
influenced perhaps in part by Persian gold, they formed the nucleus of the
league against Sparta. At the battles of Haliartus (395) and Coronea (394)
they again proved their rising military capacity by standing their ground
against the Spartans. The result of the war was especially disastrous to
Thebes, as the general settlement of 387 stipulated the complete autonomy of
all Greek towns and so withdrew the other Boeotians from its political
control. Its power was further curtailed in 382, when a Spartan force occupied
the citadel by a treacherous coup-de-main. Three years later the Spartan
garrison was expelled, and a democratic constitution definitely set up in
place of the traditional oligarchy. In the consequent wars with Sparta the
Theban army, trained and led by Epaminondas and Pelopidas, proved itself the
best in Greece. Some years of desultory fighting, in which Thebes established
its control over all Boeotia, culminated in 371 in a remarkable victory over
the pick of the Spartans at Leuctra. The winners were hailed throughout Greece
as champions of the oppressed. They carried their arms into Peloponnesus and
at the head of a large coalition permanently crippled the power of Sparta.
Similar expeditions were sent to Thessaly and Macedon to regulate the affairs
of those regions.
However the predominance of Thiva was short-lived; the states which she
protected refused to subject themselves permanently to her control, and the
renewed rivalry of Athens, which had joined with Thebes in 395 in a common
fear of Sparta, but since 387 had endeavoured to maintain the balance of power
against her ally, prevented the formation of a Theban empire. With the death
of Epaminondas at Mantinea in 362 the city sank again to the position of a
secondary power. In a war with the neighbouring state of Phocis (356–346) it
could not even maintain its predominance in central Greece, and by inviting
Philip II of Macedon to crush the Phocians it extended that monarch's power
within dangerous proximity to its frontiers. A revulsion of feeling was
completed in 338 by the orator Demosthenes, who persuaded Thebes to join
Athens in a final attempt to bar Philip's advance upon Attica. The Theban
contingent lost the decisive battle of Chaeronea and along with it every hope
of reassuming control over Greece. Philip was content to deprive Thebes of her
dominion over Boeotia; but an unsuccessful revolt in 335 against his son
Alexander was punished by Macedon and other Greek states by the severe sacking
of the city, except, according to tradition, the house of the poet Pindar.
Greek Hotel Bookings - All rights reserved