Thebes The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece

Thebes was once the most powerful city in ancient Greece, yet it gets far less attention than Athens and Sparta, its better-known rivals. Paul Cartledge, a classicist and historian, sets out to correct that. He argues that the city is central to understanding what the ancient Greeks achieved in politics and in culture, and so to the traditions that shaped western Europe, the Americas and the wider world.

This is a work of narrative history and a single-city study. It follows Thebes from its legendary past, the Theban Cycle and the stories of Cadmus, Hercules and Oedipus, into the city that actually existed.

Early chapters turn to prehistory and protohistory, drawing on archaeology, the Linear B tablets and Homer. Later chapters take up religion, politics and foreign affairs, then Pindar's poetry and Athenian tragedy, and the Peloponnesian and Corinthian Wars.

The book traces the rise and fall of Thebes as a political power. Alexander the Great destroys the city as punishment for a failed revolt, and his successor later restores it. Throughout, Cartledge separates the Thebes of myth from the Thebes of history while showing how the two connect.

The prose is clear and aimed at students of ancient history and at general readers curious about the real city behind the legends. It is a thorough, organised survey rather than a fast narrative.