Up to the end of the Peloponnesian War, the history of Greece had been chiefly the history of Athens and Sparta. The end of the war left Sparta supreme, but she did not know how to use her power. She was stern and harsh, cared little for literature, and disliked changes. She had not the imagination to put herself in the place of Athens and to understand how she should rule such independent, sea-faring, intellectually alert and artistic people. The short period of her supremacy ended in failure, and then she was, in her turn, overthrown by another Greek state. This state was Thebes, a state which had not hitherto played a very honourable part in Greek history. Always jealous of Athens, she had taken every opportunity to side against her. She had treated the sturdy, independent little city of Plataea with great cruelty; she had sided with the Barbarian invader during the Persian Wars and with Sparta during the Peloponnesian War, and it was only when the Spartan rule became intolerable to friends and enemies alike, that she offered a refuge to the Athenian exiles.
The city of Thebes lay in the rich plains of Boeotia, where meat and corn and wine were to be had abundantly. The near by hills provided excellent hunting, and the Thebans were a people known to their neighbours as loving pleasure and all the good things of the world, as being good fighters, but men who were intellectually dull. There were some exceptions, however, for Thebes produced two men of genius: Pindar, the poet, and Epaminondas, the mighty general.
Pindar was born in the sixth century B.C. but he lived to be an old man, and the Persians had been driven out of Greece before he died. He was a noble, and his poems are the last lyrics that sing of an order of society that was about to give way to the rule of the people. Many of Pindar's lyrics were written in honour of the winners at the Olympic Games, and in reading them one can almost see the chariot racing along the course, and hear the people shouting, and feel the joy of the victor as he receives his prize. Pindar was very conservative; he belonged to a generation which had not yet begun to question the existence of the gods, and all his poems are filled with unquestioning faith in them and in their righteousness. Especially did he delight to honour Apollo, and long after his death it was believed that he was particularly dear to the god, for it was said that every night at Delphi he was honoured by the summons: "Let Pindar the poet come in to the supper of the god."
But if Thebes had had no honoured past in history, she was rich in legend and story. Thebes had been founded by Cadmus in obedience to the word of Apollo. On the spot where the city was to be built, he had slain a fearful dragon, and taking the dragon's teeth he had sown them in the ground as a sower sows his seed, and immediately a host of armed men had sprung up from the ground, who became the first citizens of the new city. With their help, Cadmus built a citadel which was known through all the days of Theban history as the Cadmeia.
Thebes was surrounded by strong walls and the city was entered by seven gates. Another story told how the foundations of these walls and gateways had been laid by Amphion, who then took his lyre and played such divine music on it that the walls rose by magic as he played, until they stood in such strength that they completely protected the city, and later were able to endure a great siege.
But the gods had not always smiled upon Thebes. Pindar tells us that "for every good a mortal receives from the gods, he must likewise receive two evils," and this seemed to be true of the royal house of Thebes. Dark and tragic are the tales of the fate of these ancient rulers. It was Oedipus, who having first guessed the answer to the riddle of the Sphinx, then in ignorance killed his own father and became King, only to learn in later years of what he had done, and to be driven forth from his kingdom, blind and helpless. Other legends tell of Antigone, the faithful daughter of Oedipus, who accompanied him in his wanderings and tended him until his death.
II. EPAMINONDAS
Epaminondas was born in Thebes late in the fifth century B.C. He belonged to a very old family, one of the few which claimed to be descended from the dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus. Though of an ancient family, he was poor, but he was among the best educated among the Thebans; he had been taught to play the harp and to sing to its accompaniment, to play the flute and to dance. A wise philosopher was his instructor, to whom he was so attached that, young as he was, he preferred the society of the grave and stern old man to that of companions of his own age. After he grew up and began to practise gymnastics, he studied not so much to increase the strength as the agility of his body; for he thought that strength suited the purposes of wrestlers, but that agility made a man a better soldier, so he spent most of his time in war-like exercises.