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MAURO MOGGI

University of Siena

Boeotia refers to the region of central Greece bounded by PHOCIS (and Mt. PARNASSUS) and Locris on the north, Attica on the south; the large island of EUBOEA lay just off the coast to the east. For those approaching from the north, after the mountainous area around THERMOPYLAE and DELPHI, Boeotia provided relatively easy access to southern Greece. In the ARCHAIC AGE and classical period, THEBES was its most important city.

The Boeotians appear for the first time in Greek literature at the outset of the Catalogue of Ships (Hom. Il. 2.484–510), and their entry occupies the first and most relevant place in HOMER’s review—in stark opposition to the secondary role played by the Boeotians themselves in the rest of the poem. In fact, the section dedicated to the Boeotians is the largest among those that Homer reserves to the participants of the expedition: the Boeotians’ contingent consists of 29 poleis, 5 leaders, and 50 ships (120 men per ship: Thuc. 1.10.4). ORCHOMENUS, not yet part of Boeotia (Hdt. 8.34; Thuc. 4.76.3), is listed separately (Il. 2.511–16). It is due to Orchomenus’ past Mycenaean greatness that we know of ancient rivalries between Orchomenus and Thebes, resolved in Greek MYTH by HERACLES’ intervention in favor of Thebes. THUCYDIDES (1.12.3) knew of a tradition that had the Boeotians coming from the Thessalian city of Arne and settling in their historical location about sixty years after the sack of TROY.

Some passages in ancient authors and in Herodotus in particular (5.77.4, ethnea of Boeotians and Chalcidians—this occurs in an ORACLE reported by Herodotus; 9.15.1, boiōtarchai; cf. 5.74.2; 6.108.4–5) have been taken to indicate the existence of a Boeotian ethnos, with some form of state organization and elected federal magistrates (cf. Thuc. 4.91). However, these testimonies are ambiguous and must be read without anachronistic assumptions (federal state, confederation of states, league) or the application of categories derived from later examples. It is more accurate to picture a people that possessed proper regional and cultural identities, manifested through common practices (military activity, currency, cults), but that witnessed internal tensions among poleis and hegemonic attempts from some of them. The notion of a real koinon, organized around the leadership of the Thebans who responded with extreme severity to any manifestation of dissent, is generally accepted for parts of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE (446–386, 378–338). The first period came to an end with the King’s Peace; the second ended with the Battle of Chaeronea. If the koinon survived the destruction of the city by Alexander the Great in 335, it was re‐organized with a new capital in Onchestus.

Herodotus shows little interest in and great hostility against the Boeotian ethnos, which was guilty of an unforgivable original sin: the choice to “MEDIZE” in the face of XERXES’ invasion (481–479). The Boeotians as an ethnos only appear in two actions before the narrative of Xerxes’ invasion, and in both instances they are attacking ATHENS (with the Spartans, 5.74.2; with the Chalcidians, 5.77). Even when Herodotus praises them for fighting bravely, it comes in reference to PLATAEA—again, against the Athenians, and the Thebans are further credited with using their CAVALRY to protect the Persian retreat (9.67–68). Such behavior is contrasted with the brave and Panhellenic responses of Plataea and THESPIAE (7.131–32, 202, 222; 8.66.2) that defended Greece at the cost of their own destruction by the Persians (8.50.2) and then, after the wars, antagonism from the Thebans themselves (Thuc. 3.68, 4.133.1; Xen. Hell. 6.3.1, 5; 6.4.10), whose obsequious servility before the Great King (Hdt. 7.233.1–2; 8.50.2) had brought them no benefits.

SEE ALSO: Chalcis; Ethnicity; Panhellenism; Plutarch; polis