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The Editors THEBES

bers of the Oriental Institute of Chicago, who have also made a tered Thera (i.e., c. 1360, if the Spartans went to Thera as well complete facsimile record of the reliefs and inscriptions in the as to Melos c. 1100); for a superb collection of Babylonian seals, great temple. The high gate in the eastern side of the perimeter mainly of 14th-century date, which was found in the burnt layer wall of the temple area is battlemented like a fortress. Within of the final destruction, is likely to have formed part of the crown the precinct are other, smaller temples: one dates from the reign jewels of the Cadmean royal house. of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut, but was altered and added to History.-After the migrations of the Early Iron Age the peo- in various reigns and during the Ptolemaic and Roman periods; ple of Boeotia were of mixed stock, some speaking an Aeolic and another is the small mortuary temple of a Saite queen. There are others a northwest Greek dialect, and at Thebes a Dorian clan, a sacred lake and a well, and extensive remains, as in the Rarnes- the Aegeidae, was very influential. Thebes was governed for cen- seum, of houses and vaulted magazines built of mudbrick. turies by an oligarchy of aristocratic clans that held large estates The Palace of Amenhotep IlL-South of the temple of (klaroi), and laws were passed c. 725 to maintain the number of Medinet Habu lie the ruins of what must have been one of the estates. In the 6th century a league of Boeotian cities was formed finest buildings in western Thebes: the palace of King Amenhotep (see BOEOTIA), including Thebes. But Thebes pursued an indi- III and Queen Tiy at Malkata. It is in fact four palaces, one of vidual policy in supporting Pisistratus, who became tyrant of which was occupied by the "great royal wife," for whom her hus- Athens c. 546, and in attacking Plataea, which allied itself with band constructed a huge lake on which she could sail in her barge. Athens in 519. From this sprang a lasting enmity between Thebes The lake, now called Birket Habu, can still be traced by a line of and Athens, because Plataea lay just west of the main route from mounds to the southeast of Malkata. Little is left of the brick Thebes to the Isthmus of Corinth through the Megarid, and the palace itself; it was excavated by G. Daressy and others, lastly alliance of Plataea and Athens threatened to cut this line of com- by archaeologists sent out by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, munication. New York, who were able to restore a few of the splendid wall When hostilities broke out in 519, the Boeotian League sup- paintings. ported Thebes and was defeated by Athens. In 506 Boeotia, Chal- See AMON; EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE; EGYPT: History; see cis, and Sparta combined against Athens, but Boeotia again suf- also references under "Thebes" in the Index. fered defeat and Thebes turned to Aegina for help. When the BIBLIOGRAPHY.-A.M. Blackman, Luxor and Its Temples (1923) j Persians invaded Greece, 400 Thebans went to help defend Ther- G. Legrain, Les Temples de Karnak (1929); Karl Baedeker, Egypt and the Sudan, 8th ed. (1929); B. Porter and R. L. B. Moss, Topo- mopylae. When they were surrounded, they surrendered, and graphical Bibliography of Ancient Egypt, vol. i, Theban Tombs (1927), hatred for Athens encouraged Thebes to join the Persians. The vol. i, 2nd ed., part 1: Private Tombs (1960), vol. ii, Theban Temples Theban cavalry and infantry fought well on the Persian side at the (1929) ; H. E. Winlock, The Rise and Fall of the Middle Kingdom in Battle of Plataea; the city then stood a siege of 20 days before Thebes (1947) and Excavations at Deir el Bahri (1942) j E. Naville, The Temple of Deir el-Bahari, 7 vol. (1894-1906) and The XIth surrendering the leaders of its close oligarchy to the Greeks (479). Dynasty Temple at Deir el-Bahari, 3 vol. (1907-13) j H. H. Nelson A period of decline followed when Thebes was more or less under et al., M edinet H abu, Publications of the Oriental Institute of the the control of Sparta or Athens and its government fluctuated be- University of Chicago, 12 vol. (1930-57) j A. Wolf, Das schiine Fest tween oligarchy and democracy. Then in 446 the Boeotian League von Opet (1931) j (? Steindorff and W. Wolf, Die thebanische Graber- won its independence. In 431 Thebes attacked Plataea and started welt (1936); G. Lefebvre, Hisioire des grands pretres d'Amon de Karnak (1929) ; E. Otto, To pographie des thebanischen Gaues (1952) ; the Peloponnesian War (q.v.), during which the Thebans won a G. Steindorff and K. Seele, When Egypt Ruled the East (1942). dominant position in the Boeotian League. A number of small (M. S. DR.) states sought refuge behind the city's strong fortifications; they THEBES (Greek THEBAI; modern Greek THIVAI), a city of were treated at first as equals and then as subjects. Thebes soon Boeotia, central Greece. Pop. (1961) 15,779. Thebes is situated controlled 4 of the league's 11 wards,' and the federal council on a low ridge dividing the two plains of Boeotia. The town has met there. Moreover, Theban troops won a decisive victory at abundant springs of water, the most famous in antiquity being Delium (q.v.) in 424. When Athens surrendered (404), Thebes called Dirce, and the fertile plain in the vicinity is well irrigated. proposed its destruction, but Sparta preserved Athens as a-rival to The road and railway system of east central Greece passes through Boeotia. Thebes therefore adopted a policy of opposition to Thebes, and nature makes it the chief market town of a rich agri- Sparta, assisting the Athenian democrats and instigating the Corin- cultural area; it is the seat of the Greek Orthodox bishop of thian War (395-386). This policy failed, for Sparta disbanded Thebes and Levadhia. the Boeotian League in 386 and placed a garrison in Thebes in 382. PrehistorY.-The ancient citadel, called the Cadmea, was first For 60 years, since 446, the constitution of Thebes had been a inhabited in the Early Bronze Age and then taken over by a Middle moderate oligarchy in which the franchise was limited to the prop- Bronze Age people who probably spoke Greek and may have been ertied class. In 379 Thebes rose against Sparta and became a called Aones (perhaps a form of Iaones; i.e., Ionians). During democracy. As the Thebans liberated the Boeotian cities from the 15th century B.C. a palace of Minoan plan was built on the Sparta, they reconstituted the league on a democratic basis, with Cadmea and adorned with frescoes showing Theban women in an assembly of Boeotians meeting at Thebes. By reducing their Minoan dress; the so-called Palace Style of pottery was in use neighbours to dependent status, they soon controlled three of the at this time, some vases being imported. from Crete, and contacts new league's seven wards; their leaders Melon, Pelopidas, and between Thebes and Knossos increased in 1450-1400 (see CRETE). Epaminondas were influential in the Boeotian assembly; and their Thebes became even wealthier in the period after 1400, when the corps d'elite, the Sacred Band, defeated the Spartans at Tegyra rulers used golden vessels and built a great circuit wall; indeed, (375) and Leuctra (371). In 371-362 Thebes was the leading Boeotia rivaled Argolis as a centre of Mycenaean power until the military power in Greece. Epaminondas (q.v.) tried to make it palace and wall were destroyed about 30 years before the Trojan the capital of a unified Boeotia, and Boeotia head of a group of War, i.e., c. 1230. Greek legend attributed the citadel to Cad- federal states, but the people abused their position by destroying mus, the wall to Amphion (qq.v.), and the sack of "seven-gated Orchomenos and placing garrisons in allied cities. In 356 Thebes Thebes" to an army led by Adrastus, king of Argos (see SEVEN used the Amphictyonic Council to lay a fine on some Phocian lead- AGAINSTTHEBES); legend told, too, of Hercules born at Thebes, ers, but these seized Delphi, hired mercenaries, and overran Boeo- and of the misfortunes of Laius and Oedipus (q.v.). tia. Ten years later Thebes won the war by invoking Philip II of The destruction of Thebes is implicit in the "catalogue" of Greek Macedonia. But the Thebans broke their alliance with him and in contingents in the Iliad, which mentions Hypothebae ("lower 338 suffered defeat at Chaeronea (q.v.); the league was dissolved, Thebes") and calls the leaders Boiotoi, A further invasion by and an oligarchic government and a Macedonian garrison were im- Boiotoi about 1120 completed the collapse of Mycenaean civiliza- posed on Thebes. Thebes rose twice against Alexander the Great, tion. Excavations begun in 1963 not only placed the final de- and in 335 his army broke through the defenses. Six thousand struction of the Cadmea in the latter half of the 13th century Thebans fell, and the city was razed except for the temples and the but also threw a surprising light on the tradition that Cadmus carne house of the famous Theban poet Pindar, which Alexander spared. to Thebes from Phoenicia eight generations before Spartans en- The survivors were enslaved by order of the Greek League. - 982 THECLA-THEISM Cassander rebuilt Thebes in 316. It shared the vicissitudes of don, and the London School of Tropical Medicine in 1922. From the Boeotian League, fell under the authority of Rome, and was 1922 to 1930 he worked in the department of tropical medicine stripped. of half its territory by Sulla in 86. In Byzantine and at the Harvard Medical School in Boston. There he carried out Frankish times it prospered as an administrative and commercial important studies on amoebic dysentery, rat-bite fever, and lep- centre, particularly for silk weaving; it had a large Jewish colony tospirosis. in the 12th century. From 1205 it was the capital of the Frankish Shortly after the discovery by A. Stokes, J. H. Bauer, and lords (later dukes) of Athens, and a Frankish castle was built on N. P. Hudson that yellow fever was caused by a virus transmissible the Cadmea. In 1311 it was taken by the Almogavares (q.v.). to monkeys, Theiler showed that the common albino mouse is also Under the Turks (1435-1829) Thebes became a village. susceptible to the virus. In addition to facilitating the work on See also references under "Thebes" in the Index. the natural history of yellowfever, his discovery led to the devel- See L. Ziehen in Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopiidie der classischen opment of the first attenuated strain of the virus. In 1930 Theiler Altertumsioissenschajt, 2nd series, vol. v, 1423-1553 (1934). joined the laboratories of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York (N. G. L. H.) and together with E. Haagen, W. Lloyd, N. Ricci, and H. Smith THECLA, SAINT (1st century A.D.), honoured in the East carried out further fundamental studies on the yellow fever virus with the title "protomartyr among women and equal with the apos- that led to the development of the improved (17-D) strain widely tles," is one of the most celebrated saints in the Greek Church. used for human immunization. He also discovered a virus dis- The centre of her cult was Seleucia, in Isauria (south central Asia ease of mice that closely resembles human poliomyelitis. Minor), and her basilica south of Seleucia, long a popular place of (A. B. SN.) pilgrimage, is mentioned in the two books of St. Basil of Seleucia. THEISM (Greek Theos, "God") means belief in God, but Thecla was the heroine of the apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla more particularly, a distinctive set of doctrines expressed in philo- (late 2nd century), according to which she came under the per- sophical terms concerning God in relation to the world and man. sonal teaching of the apostle Paul at Iconium. The Acts are of a While no doctrine of God is completely divorced from ideas and highly fabulous character (Thecla escaped from burning, from wild beliefs to be found in the historical religious traditions, theism beasts, bulls, and serpents) but are nonetheless interesting monu- represents a constructive philosohical position not to be identified ments of ancient Christian literature and probably contain a nu- with any particular religion. It has frequently happened that a cleus of genuine history. They were extremely popular in the early theistic line of thought has developed within a particular religion; church. St. Thecla's feast day is Sept. 24 in the East, Sept. 23 in thus, for example, we can speak of Christian theism or of theistic the West. interpretations of Hinduism. Theism thus appears both as a Numerous versions of the Acts survive. English translations in- philosophico-theological position in its own right and as an identi- clude: of the Syriac, by W. Wright; in Apocryphal Acts of the fiable strain of thought within official church theologies. Apostles, vol. ii, pp. 116-145 (1871); of the Ethiopic, by E. J. Theism is distinguished from atheism (q.v.), or explicit denial Goodspeed, in American Journal of Semitic Languages and Litera- that there is God or a transcendent reality, and from agnosticism tures, vol. xvii, pp. 6~-95; of the Coptic, by M. R. James (ed.), in (q.v.), or the doctrine that human reason is incapable of knowl- The.Apocryphal New Testament, pp. 272-281 (1924); and of the edge in the theological sphere and is thus unable either to prove or Armenian, by F. C. Conybeare, in The Apology and Acts of Apol- disprove the existence of God. It is especially important to dis- lonius and Other Monuments of Early Christianity, pp. 61-88 tinguish theism from deism (q.v.), a position developed chiefly (1894). by philosophers in the 18th century which emphasizes the tran- See L. Radermacher, Hippolytus und Thekla (1916); Dictionary of scendence of God over the world and conceives of God primarily Christian Biography, vol. iv, pp. 882-896. as a Supreme Being or Regulator of the cosmic system. In taking THEGN (THANE), an Anglo-Saxon word meaning "one who God as an explanatory principle of the cosmos, deism did much serves," was from early times used also of the noble members to foster a contrast between the "God of philosophers" who is of a king's or great man's following; and their twofold duty of aloof and the "God of religion" who enters into personal relations service in war and in peace is mirrored in the rendering of thegn with worshipers. Theism holds to the presence (immanence) of as miles and minister in Latin sources. From the late 9th century God in the world and human experience, although it also upholds it ousted the term "gesith" (companion). Over most of England the divine transcendence. Theism, in further contrast to deism, men of this class had a wergild of 1,200 shillings. By the 11th uses the concepts of person and self in describing the divine nature, century it was considered that a typical thegn would possess at whereas deism tends toward impersonal conceptions of the deity. least five hides of land, a church and kitchen, a bellhouse and forti- Theists distinguish their position from pantheism (q.v.) in some fied dwelling, and a seat and special office in the king's hall; but of its formulations, especially if pantheism is taken to mean the the class included men of various degrees of wealth, ranging from total immanence of God in the world or in man. By contrast, those with vast estates to others who economically hardly differed theism insists upon a clear distinction between God and the world; from the ceorl (see CHURL). this feature serves also to distinguish theism from absolutism or The service of the king conferred special distinction. The religious monism in which there is an identification between God king's thegn is first mentioned in the laws (688-694) of Ine, king and the totality of things taken together as one fully unified and of Wessex, and (695) of Wihtred of Kent, and already he had all-embracing system. special privileges. King's thegns from the time of Alfred (d. 899) History.-Although the first occurrence of the term theism is served at court in rotation. They also played an increasingly im- to be found in the 17th century, the position is much older and portant part in local jurisdiction and administration. In the can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophy. It is char- Danelaw, a code of Aethelred II (d. 1016) shows the 12 senior acteristic of theism to seek support for its contentions in rational thegns of each wapentake acting as a jury of presentment. The argument and appeal to the nature of things as open to experience. king's thegns had military duties also, and they paid a higher Consequently, it has given rise to various types of argument for heriot than other thegns. By the time of Aethelred II no one the existence of God. Rational or philosophical theology aimed but the king had jurisdiction over them. Ealdormen were nor- at establishing the reality of God and at defining the divine nature mally chosen from among them. can first be found in the philosophy of Plato, 'notably in Book x In Scotland the title thane was applied to hereditary adminis- of the Laws. There Plato advanced the argument for God which trators of royal estates. It survived until the 15th century. combines ideas that formed the basis of the later cosmological (D. WK.) and teleological arguments. Motion and change exist, Plato THEILER, MA.X.-(J.899- ), South African microbiolo- argued, but some motions are imparted to a thing from another and gist, who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1951 some belong to the intrinsic nature of the being itself. This latter for his work on the virus of yellow fever, was born in Pretoria on or spontaneous motion belongs to souls alone; matter can have Jan. 30, 1899. He received his early education in South Africa only such motion as is communicated to it from another. That and completed his medical training at St. Thomas' Hospital, Lon- motion in the universe which is communicated requires a soul

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