Boea. See: [Boæ].
Bœbe, a town of Thessaly. Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 7, fable 5.——A lake of Crete. Strabo, bk. 9.
Bœbēis, a lake of Thessaly, near mount Ossa. Lucan, bk. 7, li. 176.
Bœbia lex, was enacted to elect four pretors every year.——Another to insure proprietors in the possession of their lands.——Another, A.U.C. 571, against using bribes at elections.
Boedromia, an Athenian festival instituted in commemoration of the assistance which the people of Athens received in the reign of Erechtheus, from Ion son of Xuthus, when their country was invaded by Eumolpus son of Neptune. The word is derived ἁπο του βοηδρομειν, coming to help. Plutarch in Theseus mentions it as in commemoration of the victory which Theseus obtained over the Amazons, in a month called at Athens Boedromion.
Bœotarchæ, the chief magistrates in Bœotia. Livy, bk. 42, ch. 43.
Bœotia, a country of Greece, bounded on the north by Phocis, south by Attica, east by Eubœa, and west by the bay of Corinth. It has been successively called Aonia, Mesapia, Hyantis, Ogygia, and Cadmeis, and now forms a part of Livadia. It was called Bœotia, from Bœotus son of Itonus; or, according to others, a bove, from a cow, by which Cadmus was led into the country where he built Thebes. The inhabitants were reckoned rude and illiterate, fonder of bodily strength than of mental excellence; yet their country produced many illustrious men, such as Pindar, Hesiod, Plutarch, &c. The mountains of Bœotia, particularly Helicon, were frequented by the Muses, to whom also many of their fountains and rivers were consecrated. Herodotus, bk. 2, ch. 49; bk. 5, ch. 57.—Ovid, Metamorphoses, bk. 3, li. 10.—Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 1, &c.—Cornelius Nepos, bk. 7, ch. 11.—Strabo, bk. 9.—Justin, bk. 3, ch. 6; bk. 8, ch. 4.—Horace, bk. 2, ltr. 1, li. 244.—Diodorus, bk. 19.—Livy, bk. 27, ch. 30, &c.
Bœotus, a son of Itonus by Menalippa. Pausanias, bk. 9, ch. 1.
Bœorobistas, a man who made himself absolute among the Getæ, by the strictness of his discipline. Strabo, bk. 7.
Boethius, a celebrated Roman, banished and afterwards punished with death, on a suspicion of a conspiracy, by Theodoric king of the Ostrogoths, A.D. 525. It was during his imprisonment that he wrote his celebrated poetical treatise De consolatione philosophiæ, in five books. The best edition of his works is that of Hagenau, 4to, 1491, or that of Leiden, 1671, with the notis variorum.