THEBES THEINEE 689 extend beyomd. The road from Luxor to Kar- nak lies through fields of halfa grass, though they were once united by an avenue of andro- sphinxes. The great palace temple of Karnak stands within a circuit wall of brick, the en- closure being 1,800 ft. long and somewhat less broad. It was approached by an avenue of crio-sphinxes, of which only fragments remain. Between the end of the dromos and the main body of the building, five lofty pylones and four spacious courts intervene. In the first court were two obelisks of Thothmes I., one of which still remains; in the second court is another obelisk, the loftiest known except that of St. John Lateran at Home ; and in one of the chambers are the sculptures which com- pose the Karnak tablet, called the "hall of the ancestors" or the "tablet of Tuthmosis" (Thothmes III.), now in the Louvre. The king is represented on it as making offerings before the images of 61 of his predecessors. In the British museum is now a tablet of the same kind, known as the "tablet of Abydos." The great hall is 80 ft. high, 329 ft. long, and 179 ft. wide; the roof is supported by a central avenue of 12 massive columns, 66 ft. high and 12 ft. in diameter, together with 122 columns of less gigantic dimensions. These vast courts, halls, and esplanades were reared by kings of the 18th and succeeding dynasties for purposes partly religious and partly secular. The sa- cred calendar abounded in days for periodical meetings; the troops were reviewed and the spoils of victory apportioned in the courts of royal palaces, which also served for the ad- ministration of justice and occasionally for the encampment of the army. THEBES (Gr. e^/fo*; Lat. Thefice; modern Gr. Thwa in Greek antiquity, the chief city of Bceotia, built on and around a hill between the streams of Ismenus on the east and Dirce on the west. The citadel occupied the height, and the greater part of the town stood in the valleys. Of its ancient buildings, monuments, and walls, only a few scattered fragments re- main, and its topography is entirely uncertain. It is impossible to harmonize the ancient wri- ters as to the position or even the names of its seven gates. Thebes was equally illustrious in the mythical and the historical ages of Greece. Its two sieges and the fortunes of its royal houses were favorite subjects of tragedy ; and it was for a time the ruling city of Greece. Tradition ascribed to Gadmus the foundation of the city, which was hence called Cadmea, a name afterward restricted to the citadel. From the five Sparti, the survivors of the progeny of the dragon's teeth, the noblest Theban families claimed descent. The expulsion of (Edipus, and the successive sieges by the " Seven against Thebes " and by the Epigoni, were the princi- pal recorded events before the Cadmeans were driven out by the Boeotians, a tribe from Thes- saly. This occurred about 60 years after the Trojan war, according to Thucydides. The legislation of Philolaus, in the 8th century B. 0., gave it an oligarchical instead of monarchi- cal form of government, and made it the head of the confederacy of Boeotian towns. The first entirely certain event in its history is the revolt of one of these towns, Platsea (about 519), which applied to Athens for protection. A war^cnsued between the Thebans and Athe- nians, in which the latter were successful, and which initiated lasting enmity between the two states. Thebes lost credit by abandoning the cause of Greece in the Persian war, and fighting against the Athenians at Plateea (479). The victorious Greeks appeared before its walls, and compelled the inhabitants to surrender their "Medizing" leaders, who were immedi- ately put to death. An Athenian invasion supplanted its oligarchy by a democratic gov- ernment in 456, but in 447 the exiled aristo- cratic leaders returned, defeated the Athenians, and reestablished the former government. Du- ring the Peloponnesian war the Thebans were more anti-Athenian than even the Spartans, but they joined the coalition against the latter in 395, and were the only portion of the allied army which was not routed by them at Coro- nea. The peace of Antalcidas (387) deprived them of their supremacy over the other Boeo- tian towns. The Spartans, who treacherous- ly seized the citadel in 382, were expelled by Pelopidas about the close of 379, and were defeated by Epaminondas at Leuctra in 371. Epaminondas invaded the Peloponnesus, and established there the Arcadian confederation and the state of Messenia as political pow- ers antagonistic to Sparta. But the Thebans sought in vain to establish their supremacy by a general treaty, and lost it after the death of Epaminondas at Mantinea (362). In 358 Athens wrested Euboea from Thebes. In the sacred war (357-346) the Thebans were op- posed to Athens and Sparta, and received sup- port from Philip of Macedon; but when the design of the latter to conquer the whole of Greece became apparent, they joined the Athe- nians against him. Philip, however, was vic- torious at Cheronaea (338). Thebes received a Macedonian garrison, and its leading citizens were put to death or banished. Alexander the Great razed it to the ground in 835, sparing only the house of Pindar, after which it never again formed an independent state. Cassan- der restored the city in 315, and it was taken by Demetrius Poliorcetes in 292 and 290. In the time of Strabo it had dwindled down to the condition of a village, but it was a flour- ishing town during the 10th and llth centuries. It was plundered by the Normans of Sicily in 1146. The present town is small and poor. THEFT. See LABCENY. THERE. See CAFFEINE, and TEA. THEINER. I. Ang'ostin, a German historian, born in Breslau, April 11, 1804, died in CivitS Vecchia, Aug. 9, 1874. He studied at Breslau and Halle, and from 1826 to 1828 assisted his brother Johann Anton in his work on the his- tory of celibacy. An essay on the papal decre-
