Thespiae

Not to be confused with Thespeia or Thespia (mythology).

Thespiae (/ˈθɛspi.iː/ THESP-ee-ee; Ancient Greek: Θεσπιαί, romanized: Thespiaí) was an ancient Greek city (polis) in Boeotia. It stood on level ground commanded by the low range of hills which run eastward from the foot of Mount Helicon to Thebes, near modern Thespies.

Thespiae

Θεσπιαί
Silver Obol from Thespiae, 431-424 BCE. Obverse: Boeotian shield. Reverse: crescent, ΘΕΣ[ΠΙΕΩΝ] (of the Thespians).
Location of Thespiae in Boeotia, Greece
Coordinates	38°17′36″N 23°09′04″E
Type	Ancient city
History
Founded	Before c. 750 BCE
Periods	Archaic, Classical, Hellenistic, Roman
Cultures	Ancient Greek
Site notes
Excavation dates	1882
Archaeologists	Panagiotis Stamatakis
Condition	Ruined

During the Second Persian invasion of Greece, Thespiae's 700 hoplites remained with the Spartans in the Battle of Thermopylae, fighting the Persians and allowing the Greek forces to retreat. It was one of the few Boeotian cities to stay loyal to Greece after the battle. Although Thespian hoplites are popularly depicted with dark cloaks and crescent shields, no evidence supports the historical accuracy of these items. In Ancient Greece, Thespiae rivaled Thebes and survived through the Roman Empire.

History

In the history of ancient Greece, Thespiae was one of the cities of the federal league known as the Boeotian League. Several traditions agree that the Boeotians were a people expelled from Thessaly some time after the mythical Trojan War, and who colonised the Boeotian plain over a series of generations, of which the occupation of Thespiae formed a later stage. Other traditions suggest that they were of Mycenean origin.

Archaic period

In the Archaic period, the Thespian nobility was heavily dependent on Thebes. This possibly reflected that land ownership was concentrated in the hands of a small number of nobles, creating difficulty in equipping an effective force of hoplites. Thespiae therefore decided to become a close ally of Thebes. The Thespians destroyed Ascra at some point between 700–650 BCE, and later settled Eutresis between 600–550 BCE. Thespiae also took control over Creusis, Siphae, Thisbe and Chorisae, probably some time in the late sixth century.

The Thessalians invaded Boeotia as far as Thespiae, more than 200 years before Leuctra (according to Plutarch), c. 571 BCE, which might have given Thespiae the impetus to join the Boeotian League. But elsewhere Plutarch gives a date for the Thessalian invasion as shortly preceding the Second Persian War. Herodotus suggests that Thespiae had been a member of the league as long as Thebes had been. Following the Persian Wars, Thespiae provided two Boeotarchs to the league, rather than one; perhaps one for the city and one for the districts under its control.

Persian, Peloponnesian, and Corinthian wars

By the time of the Persian invasion of 480 BCE Thespiae's ability to field a substantial force of hoplites had changed. Thespiae and Thebes were the only Boeotian cities to send a contingent to fight at Thermopylae, Thespiae sending a force of 700 hoplites who remained to fight beside the Spartans on the final day of the battle. In 1997, the Greek government dedicated a monument to the Thespians who fell alongside that of the Spartans. After the battle, Thebes was the final Boeotian state to side with the Persians, and in doing so they denounced both Plataea and Thespiae to Xerxes I as the only Boeotian states to side with the Greeks. After the city was burned down by Xerxes, the remaining inhabitants furnished a force of 1,800 men for the confederate Greek army that fought at Plataea.

During the Athenian invasion of Boeotia in 424 BCE, the Thespian contingent of the Boeotian army sustained heavy losses at the Battle of Delium. In the next year, the Thebans dismantled the walls of Thespiae on the charge that the Thespians were pro-Athenian, perhaps as a measure to prevent a democratic revolution. In 414 the Thebans aided the Thespians in suppressing a democratic revolution.

In the Corinthian War, Thespiae was initially part of the anti-Spartan alliance. At the Battle of Nemea in 394 BCE, the Thespian contingent fought the Pellenes to a standstill while the rest of the Spartan allies were defeated by the Boeotians. After Nemea, Thespiae became an ally to Sparta and served as staging point for Spartan campaigns in Boeotia throughout the Corinthian War. The city became autonomous as stipulated in the King's Peace of 386 BCE which resolved the Corinthian War, and maintained autonomy until 373 BCE. In 373 BCE Thespiae was subdued by the Thebans, the Thespians were exiled from Boeotia and they arrived in Athens along with the Plataeans seeking aid. But they still sent a contingent to fight against the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BCE. The Boeotarch Epameinondas allowed the Thespians to withdraw before the battle, along with other Boeotians who nursed a grudge against Thebes. Not long after the battle Thespiae was razed by Thebes and its inhabitants expelled. At some point later the city was restored.

Hellenistic period

In 335 BCE, the Thespians joined in an alliance with Alexander the Great in destroying Thebes. The famous hetaera (courtesan) Phryne was born at Thespiae in the 4th century BCE, though she seems to have lived at Athens. One of the anecdotes told of her is that she offered to finance the rebuilding of the Theban walls on the condition that the words Destroyed by Alexander, Restored by Phryne the courtesan were inscribed upon them.

In the Greek Anthology, it is written that on an altar in Thespiae there was a tripod dedicated to the "Zeus the Thunderer" (Ancient Greek: Ἐριβρεμέτῃ). The tripod was set up for the Thespiae soldiers who went and fought in Asia, with Alexander the Great, to take revenge for their ancestors.

During the Hellenistic period, Thespiae sought the friendship of the Roman Republic in the war against Mithridates VI. It is subsequently mentioned by Strabo as a place of some size, and by Pliny as a free city, within the Roman Empire, a reward for its support against Mithridates. Thespiae hosted an important group of Roman negotiatores until the refoundation of Corinth in 44 BCE.

Pausanias wrote that Thespians dedicated at Olympia a statue of Pleistaenus (Πλείσταινος), son of the Eurydamus (Εὐρυδάμος), who was the general against the Gauls.

Mythology

Thespiae bore importance in numerous myths, despite not being a major Greek city. Notably, Narcissus was a Thespian youth who, after gazing upon his reflection in a pool, fell in love with himself, leading to his demise. It also appeared in the myth of Heracles, where he helped free it from the Lion of Cithaeron. As a reward, he was granted a night with each of the fifty daughters of king Thespius.

The town was similarly plagued by a serpent, the Thespian Dragon, to which it sacrificed a youth every year. The Dragon was eventually slain by a man named Menestratus, who, wanting to save his lover Cleostratus, let himself be swallowed while wearing a spiked breastplate.

Mount Helicon, believed to have been created by Pegasus, is found near the city. The Muses often dwelled on the mountain's sacred spring Hippocrene.

The name "Thespiae" has contesting mythological origins between King Thespius, the city's legendary founder, and Thespia, a Naiad-nymph, abducted by Apollo. She was a daughter of the river god Asopus.

Ancient religion

The Venus of Arles, modeled after the Aphrodite of Thespiae by Praxiteles

According to Pausanias, the deity most worshipped at Thespiae was Eros, whose primitive image was an unwrought stone. The city contained many works of art, among them the Eros of Praxiteles, one of the most famous statues in the ancient world; it drew crowds of people to Thespiae. It was carried off to Rome by Caligula, restored by Claudius, and again carried off by Nero. Another work by Praxiteles associated with Thespiae was an Aphrodite, after which the Venus of Arles is thought to have been modeled. There was also a bronze statue of Eros by Lysippos.

The Thespians celebrated the Erotidia (Ancient Greek: Ἐρωτίδεια) meaning festivals of Eros.

The Thespians also worshipped the Muses, honored by a shrine in the Valley of the Muses and celebrated in a festival in the sacred grove on Mount Helicon.

Clement of Alexandria writes that at Thespiae there was a statue of the Cithaeronian Hera.

Thespians

Citizens of Thespiae are called Thespians. The common noun thespian meaning "actor" comes from the legendary first actor named Thespis, and not the city. Both Thespis and Thespiae, however, are derived from the noun θέσπις (théspis, meaning 'divine inspiration').

• Demophilus of Thespiae – Commander of the Thespian force at the Battle of Thermopylae.
• Phryne – a hetaira. She is best known for her trial for impiety, where she was defended by the orator Hypereides.
• Amphion (Ancient Greek: Ἀμφίων) – An ancient writer.

Archaeology

A kantharos from Thespiae (450–425 BC) inscribed in the Boeotian alphabet

Remains of what was probably the ancient acropolis consists of an oval line of fortification, while the ground to the east and south are covered with foundations. In 1882, the remains of a communal tomb (polyandrion), including a colossal stone lion, were discovered on the road to Leuctra. The tomb contains both cremated remains, associated with an in-situ pyre, and seven inhumations. The tomb dates from the second half of the 5th century BC, and is usually identified as that of the Thespians who fell at the Battle of Delium in 424 BC. It was excavated by the Greek archaeologist Panagiotis Stamatakis in 1882.

See also

• List of ancient Greek cities

References

• Buck, R.J. 1979, A History of Boeotia, University of Alberta Press, Edmonton.
• Buckler, J. & Spawforth, A.J.S. 2009, The Oxford Classical Dictionary, S. Hornblower & A.J.S. Spawforth eds, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Thespiae". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 26 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 840.
• Herodotus, Histories
• Larsen, J.A.O. 1955, "The Boeotian confederacy and Fifth-century oligarchic theory", Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol. 86, pp. 40–50.
• Pausanias, Description of Greece
• Stylianou, P.J. (1998). A Historical Commentary on Diodorus Siculus, Book 15. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-815239-2.
• Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War
• Xenophon, Hellenica

External links

• The Cult of Eros – discusses the cult and has of pictures of Roman marble copies of the bronze Eros of Thespeia by Lysippos