Thebes

Type of Government

The Greek city of Thebes was notable for its participation in the Boeotian League, a regional confederacy of sovereign city-states that developed a system of federal governance comprising an elective executive board of boeotarchs (ministers or generals) and a 660-member federal council. Later in its history, the league was reconstituted as a more democratic organ made up of an elective executive body and a deliberative assembly whose membership was open to all Boeotians.

Background

Thebes was the major city of the region known as Boeotia, located northwest of Athens, and one of the major powers of ancient Greece. Originally a Mycenaean city (destroyed just before the Trojan War, in the thirteenth or twelfth century BC), Thebes was settled as early as 1000 BC by Boeotian settlers, who quickly established it as the area’s most important city.

In approximately 550 BC Thebes spearheaded the formation of the Boeotian League, a regional confederacy of sovereign city-states that also included the major towns of Orchomenus, Plataea, and Thespiae. The league’s history was checkered by conflict between Thebes and the other city-states of the region. Thebes had great political ambitions, hoping to establish itself as a Greek superpower, but was thwarted by the resistance of the smaller Boeotian cities and by the interference of the Athenians, who encouraged discord among the Boeotians. Ultimately, the Boeotian League was limited to a loose confederation rather than a true federal government.

Thebes’s history was also marked by an unfortunate habit of choosing the wrong side in battle. During the Persian Wars (492–449 BC), the Boeotians sided with Persia against Athens, a choice for which they were severely punished when the Athenians triumphed. Likewise, during the Peloponnesian Wars (460–404 BC) between Athens and Sparta, Thebes initially sided with Sparta but later withdrew its support; after the Spartans crushed the Athenians in 404 BC, they set up a garrison in Thebes.

In 371 BC the Theban general Epaminondas (c. 410–362 BC) defeated the Spartan forces at the battle of Leuctra, effectively ending the Spartans’ supremacy in the region. Thebes enjoyed a short-lived period of dominance in the Greek world—known as the Theban hegemony—from 371 to 362 BC, during which time it was the chief military power in Greece.

Government Structure

The main political contribution of the Thebans was the development of a system of federal governance achieved by the Boeotian League. The league was organized into eleven districts, each representing one or more cities. Each district elected a boeotarch, who served on a board of officers assigned to carry out executive functions. Each district also sent sixty representatives to a federal council located at Thebes. This council of 660 was further divided into four panels that convened for one year. Only members of the landowning class were permitted to vote. Thebes accounted for four of the eleven districts during this time.

After 379 BC the Boeotian League was reconstituted in a more democratic form. The vote was extended to all Boeotians, regardless of property, who convened at an assembly in Thebes. The assembly decided matters of public policy. By this time, the league comprised only seven districts—three controlled by Thebes—each of which elected a representative to serve on an executive body accountable to the assembly.

Political Parties and Factions

Internally, the Theban city-state was controlled by a powerful landowning class. At some point, the qualifications of birth (based on nobility) gave way to wealth, particularly wealth derived from the breeding and selling of pigs, for which the region was known. The aristocracy was chiefly concerned with preserving the system of property rights and the transmission of property.

Major Events

Two significant events bookend the period of Theban hegemony (371–362 BC). In 371 BC the Boeotian army, led by Epaminondas and allied with the Athenians, defeated the Spartan forces that had invaded Thebes, leaving more than a thousand Spartans dead at Leuctra. The battle ended Sparta’s reign as a superpower and established Thebes as Greece’s chief military power.

Thebes’s short-lived supremacy ended less than a decade later when Epaminondas, having led successful campaigns in the Peloponnese between 370 and 362 BC, was killed in the battle of Mantinea against Athens, Sparta, and their allies.

Aftermath

Following its defeat at Mantinea in 362 BC, Thebes’s influence in the Greek world declined significantly. It again found itself on the losing side of an important battle in 338 BC, when Thebes and Athens confronted the Macedonian forces of Philip II (382–336 BC), losing at the Boeotian city of Chaeronea. When the Thebans revolted two years later upon Philip’s death, Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) attacked and destroyed the city. Even though the city was later rebuilt, it never returned to its former glory.

Thebes is remembered for its rich mythological tradition. The city was home to the mythical king Oedipus, and it was the setting of many ancient Greek dramas, including Sophocles’s (c. 496–406 BC) Oedipus Rex and Antigone and Aeschylus’s (525–456 BC) Seven against Thebes.

Buck, Robert J. Boiotia and the Boiotian League, 432–371 BC. Edmonton, Canada: University of Alberta Press, 1994.

Buckler, John. The Theban Hegemony, 371–362 BC. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980.

Tritle, Lawrence A. The Greek World in the Fourth Century: From the Fall of the Athenian Empire to the Successors of Alexander. New York: Routledge, 1997.