Thespiae

“ The war between Athens, however, and Thebes with her Bœotian allies, still continued, to the great and repeated disadvantage of the latter, until at length the Thebans in despair sent to ask advice of the Delphian oracle, and were directed to “solicit aid from those nearest to them.” [300] “How (they replied) are we to obey? Our nearest neighbors, of Tanagra, Korôneia, and Thespiæ, are now, and have been from the beginning, lending us all the aid in their power.” ”

“ My eyes bear witness that our hearts are in accord; you and we alike are pained at the effacement of Plataeae and Thespiae. Is it not then reasonable that out of agreement should spring concord rather than discord? It is never the part, I take it, of wise men to raise the standard of war for the sake of petty differences; but where there is nothing but unanimity they must be marvellous folk who refuse the bond of peace. ”

“ Xenophon indeed states that the Thespians were at this very period treated exactly like the Platæans; that is, driven out of Bœotia, and their town destroyed; except that they had not the same claim on Athens (Hellen. vi, 3, 1—ἀπόλιδας γενομένους: compare also vi, 3, 5) . Diodorus also (xv, 46) speaks of the Thebans as having destroyed Thespiæ. But against this, I gather, from the Plataic Oration of Isokrates, that the Thespians were not in the same plight with the Platæans when that oration was delivered; that is, they were not expelled collectively out of Bœotia. ”

“ Here is set up Hesiod in bronze. Not far from the agora is a Nike of bronze and a small temple of the Muses. In it are small agalmata made of stone.
9.27.6 At Thespiae is also a sanctuary of Heracles. The priestess there is a virgin, who acts as such until she dies. The reason of this is said to be as follows. Heracles, they say, had intercourse with the fifty daughters of Thestius, except one, in a single night. She was the only one who refused to have connection with him. Heracles, thinking that he had been insulted, condemned her to remain a virgin all her life, serving him as his priest. ”

“ His first great adventure, which happened while he was still watching the oxen of his father, is his fight against and victory over the lion of Cythaeron. This animal made great havoc among the flocks of Amphitryon and Thespius (or Thestius) , king of Thespiae, and Heracles promised to deliver the country of the monster. Thespius, who had fifty daughters, rewarded Heracles by making him his guest so long as the chase lasted, and gave up his daughters to him, each for one night. ”

“ Hence it might be conjectured, that Helicon was consecrated to the Muses, by Thracians, who dedicated also Pieris, the Leibethrum, and Pimpleia to the same goddesses. The Thracians were called Pieres, and since their expulsion, the Macedonians possess these places.
It has been remarked, that the Thracians, (having expelled the Bœotians by force,) and the Pelasgi, and other barbarous people, settled in this part of Bœotia.
Thespiæ was formerly celebrated for a statue of Cupid by Praxiteles. ”

“ If, on the other hand, Megalopolis makes alliance frankly with us, and the Spartans then refuse to keep the peace, it will surely be clear to all that what the Spartans desire so eagerly is not the re-establishment of Thespiae, but an opportunity of subduing the Peloponnese while the Thebans are involved in the war. [13] 29 And I am surprised to find that there are some who are alarmed at the prospect of the enemies of Sparta becoming allies of Thebes, and yet see nothing to fear in the subjugation of these enemies by Sparta herself ”

“ In 353 Thebes was suffering considerably from the Sacred War, and the Spartans made an ingenious attempt to recover their power, in the form of a proposal for the restoration of territory to its original owners. This meant that Athens would recover Oropus, which had been in the hands of Thebes since 366, and had previously been the subject of a long-standing dispute; that Orchomenus, Thespiae, and Plataeae, which had all been overthrown by Thebes, would be restored ”

“ There is an equal difficulty as to their age. The [pg 61] Greeks say that the tombs in which they are found are not later than the second century B. C., and it is, indeed, hard to conceive at what later period there was enough wealth and art to produce such often elegant, and often costly, results. Tanagra and Thespiæ were, indeed, in Strabo’s day (lib. ix. 2) the only remaining cities of Bœotia; the rest, he says, were but ruins and names. But we may be certain that in that time of universal decay the remaining towns must have been as poor and insignificant as they now are. ”

“ The bare body is treated with utmost simplicity and without a trace of self-consciousness. A dog sits at his master’s feet with nose upturned. This monument is from Thespiae in Boeotia, and must date from the middle of the fifth century: the letters over the head, Ἀγαθόκλη χαῖρε, are, it need scarcely be said, of much later times, proving that this stele, like so many at Athens, was used again in Roman times to mark a fresh tomb.
Of somewhat later date is the relief on an Attic lekythos (Fig. 57) , in which we find an athlete exercising himself [174] . ”

“ We will summon the Athenians themselves, so that they may imagine that all that they want is secured, and may pass no hostile decree: but the ambassadors shall make such reports about us, and give such promises, as will prevent them from moving under any circumstances.' 325 It was in this way, and by such trickery as this, that all was ruined, through the action of these doomed wretches. For immediately afterwards, as you know, instead of seeing Thespiae and Plataeae repeopled, you heard that Orchomenus and Coroneia had been enslaved ”

“ This poet was born many years before Narcissus the Thespian, and he says that Kore, the daughter of Demeter, was carried off when she was playing and gathering flowers, and that the flowers by which she was deceived into being carried off were not violets, but the narcissus.
CREUSIS AND THISBE 9.32.1 Creusis, the harbor of Thespiae, has nothing to show publicly, but at the home of a private person I found an image of Dionysus made of gypsum and adorned with painting. The voyage from the Peloponnesus to Creusis is winding and, besides, not a calm one. ”

“ He takes upon his own shoulders the whole of their misconduct, and makes it his own. 37 But as to the Phocians and Thespiae, and the promises contained in Aeschines' report to you—why, there is not the slightest mention of them! And it was no mere accident that the proceedings took this form. For the failure of the ambassadors to carry out or give effect to any of the instructions imposed upon them by your resolution—the failure for which you were bound to punish them—Philip makes himself responsible in their stead, and says that the fault was his ”

“ They splutter and splash like a pig in a puddle And dickens a one of 'em's earning his salt. For Thespis as Jove is a terrible blunder, Too nervous and timid – too easy and weak – Whenever he's called on to lightning or thunder, The thought of it keeps him awake for a week. Then mighty Mars hasn't the pluck of a parrot. When left in the dark he will quiver and quail; And Vulcan has arms that would snap like a carrot, Before he could drive in a tenpenny nail. Then Venus' freckles are very repelling, And Venus should not have a quint in her eyes ”

“ And as you turn to the left from the temple of the Cabiri in about 50 stades you will come to Thespia built under Mount Helicon. The town got its name they say from Thespia the daughter of Asopus. Others say that Thespius the son of Erechtheus came from Athens, and gave his name to it. At Thespia is a brazen statue of Zeus [Pg 190] Soter: they say that, when a dragon once infested the town, Zeus ordered one of the lads chosen by lot every year to be given to the monster. ”

“ His performances were still of a ludicrous and homely character, and much more akin to the comic than the tragic. Of that which makes the essence of the solemn drama of Athens—its stately plot, its gigantic images, its prodigal and sumptuous poetry, Thespis was not in any way the inventor. But PHRYNICHUS, the disciple of Thespis, was a poet; he saw, though perhaps dimly and imperfectly, the new career opened to the art, and he may be said to have breathed the immortal spirit into the mere mechanical forms, when he introduced poetry into the bursts of the chorus and the monologue of the actor. ”

“ Some suppose that one of the Thespiades refused to admit Hercules to her arms, for which the hero condemned her to pass all her life in continual celibacy, and to become the priestess of a temple he had at Thespia. The children of the Thespiades, called Thespiadæ, went to Sardinia, where they made a settlement with Iolaus, the friend of their father. Thespius is often confounded by ancient authors with Thestius, though the latter lived in a different place, and, as king of Pleuron, sent his sons to the hunting of the Calydonian boar. ”

“ The external means which a wide territory and military power afforded them were here doubtless present in a greater degree than in any [pg 068] other country; the Thessalians were also distinguished for their bravery, and the ancient fame of the country would have supported claims in themselves well founded; how came it then that the history of Thessaly was a blank in the annals of Greece, while Sparta was so long its very soul? The only answer is, that the national character of the Thessalians was altogether different; for wisdom they had only cunning ”

“ The wealth and the semi-Hellenic character of the people—for in race, as in geographical position, the Thessalians held an intermediate place between the non-Hellenic Macedonians and the Greeks of pure blood—caused them to be wanting in patriotism, so that at the time of the Persian wars we find the Aleuadae making common cause with the enemies of Greece. When they were united they were a formidable power, but, like other half-organized communities, they seldom combined for long together, and consequently they influenced but little the fortunes of the Greeks. ”

“ On the northern part of the island, near the town of Histiæa, the coast was called Artemisium, and here the fleet was mustered, to co-operate with the land forces, and oppose, in a narrow strait, the progress of the Persian fleet. The defile of Thermopylæ itself, at the south of Thessaly, was between Mount Œta and an impassable morass on the Maliac Gulf. Nature had thus provided a double position of defense—a narrow defile on the land, and a narrow strait on the water, through which the army and the fleet must need pass if they would co-operate. ”

“ Probably the earliest portion of Asia Minor to be colonized by the Greeks was the north-west, to which came settlers from Thessaly, when the early inhabitants were driven out by the Thesprotians, who later controlled Thessaly. The name Aeolis, which after times gave to the N.W. of Asia Minor, was the old name for Thessaly (Hdt. vii. 176) . These Thesprotians were of the same stock as the Dorians, to whose invasion of the Peloponnese the later migration, which carried the Ionians to Asia and the Cypriot Greeks to Cyprus, in all probability was due. ”

“ The name of the Thespian leader ought also to have its place on the roll of honour. It was Demophilus.
In the forenoon the Persians began a double attack, in front and in rear. They had seen such proofs of Greek prowess that the men had to be driven into battle by the whip. As for the Greeks, they changed their tactics. Leaving the pass of the Hot Springs and the wall, they advanced into the open space. Hope of escape or victory had been given up. They would fight where they could sell their lives most dearly. ”

“ The history of Thessaly is closely connected with its geography. The fertility of the land offered a temptation to invaders, and was thus the primary cause of the early migrations. It was this motive which first induced the Thessalians to leave their home in Epirus and descend into this district, and from this movement arose the expulsion of the Boeotians from Arne, and their settlement in the country subsequently called Boeotia ”

“ Lucy went [61] on, turning toward Tessa, "that those brave men saved the city. They kept the enemy from entering until the bridge was cut down. The last one stood on guard until he felt the supports give way. Then he cried out to the river:
"'O Tiber, Father Tiber, to whom the Romans pray,
A Roman's life, a Roman's arms take thou in charge this day.'
"An instant afterward he jumped into the rushing stream and swam with all his might back to his people and the city he had saved." ”

“ Thessaly.—From the northern chain of mountains, the central Pindus range, running south, separates Thessaly on the east from Epi'rus on the west. The former region, enclosed by mountain ranges broken only on the east, and watered by the Pene'us and its numerous tributaries, embraced the largest and most fertile plain in all Greece. On the Thessalian coast, south of Olympus, were the celebrated mounts Ossa and Pe'lion, which the giants, in their wars against the gods, as the poets fable, piled upon Olympus in their daring attempt to scale the heavens and dethrone the gods. ”

“ The Greeks of Thessaly bestow much care upon the education of growing generations. Even the most miserable Greek village in the Pindus can boast of a school, which is visited by the young people up to the age of fifteen. As an instance of the commercial spirit of the Thessalians we may mention the Weavers’ Co-operative Association, formed in the last century in the town of Ambelakia, delightfully situated amongst orchards and vineyards on the southern slopes of the Valley of Tempe. ”