THEBES

Thebes was situated in Greece, in Boetia, north of Mount Cithaeron (now Kithairon), northwest of Athens. It was founded by Cadmus the legendary leader of the Phoenicians.

From c. 519 BC onwards it was a great rival of Athens. During the Persian invasion of Greece by Xerxes II in 479 BC, the Thebans sided with the Persians and fought against the Greek confederation at Plataea. In 431 BC Thebes fought alongside Sparta in the Peloponnesian War against Athens, but sided with Athens, Corinth, and Argos against Sparta in the Corinthian War (395-386 BC).

The Athenian orator Demosthenes persuaded the Thebans to unite with the Athenians in opposition to the King Philip II of Macedon, but in 338 BC, at the Battle of Chaeronea, the power of Thebes and Greece was crushed. Thebes was destroyed in 335 BC by Philip's son and successor, Alexander the Great, who sold the surviving population into slavery.