From The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood
Thebes
an ancient city of Egypt of great renown, once capital of Upper Egypt; covered 10 sq. m. of the valley of the Nile on both sides of the river, 300 m. SE. of Cairo; now represented by imposing ruins of temples, palaces, tombs, and statues of colossal size, amid which the humble dwellings of four villages—Luxor, Karnack, Medinet Habu, and Kurna—have been raised. The period of its greatest flourishing extended from about 1600 to 1100 B.C., but some of its ruins have been dated as far back as 2500 B.C.
2. Thebes, capital of the ancient Grecian State Boeotia, whose site on the slopes of Mount Teumessus, 44 m. NW. of Athens, is now occupied by the village of Thiva; its legendary history, embracing the names of Cadmus, Dionysus, Hercules, Oedipus, etc, and authentic struggles with Athens and Sparta during the Peloponnesian War, its rise to supremacy under Epaminondas over all Greece, and its destruction by Alexander, have all combined to place it amongst the most famous cities of ancient Greece.
Boeotia, a country of ancient Greece, N. of the Gulf of
Corinth; the natives, though brave, were mere tillers of the soil
under a heavy atmosphere, innocent of culture, and regarded as
boors and dullards by the educated classes of Greece, and
particularly of Athens, and yet Hesiod, Pindar, and Plutarch were
natives of Boeotia.
