Hans Beck | Session 4 of the Battle of Plataea Conference
Channel: The Center for Hellenic Studies
Date: 2022-06-29

Thebes, Boiotia, and the Battle of Plataia. Perspectives from the Kadmeia

Hans Beck (University of Münster, University of Montreal)

Recent research on Archaic Thebes showcases the engagement of the city in the Asopos Valley and the direction of Plataia. Indeed, new epigraphic discoveries document the lively entanglement with the communities to the south and east of Thebes, towards the Saronic region and the Euboian Gulf respectively. In the decades prior to the arrival of Persian army, then, this region was shaped by the interactions between many settlements. The Thebans were clearly the most powerful stakeholder in these exchanges and they pursued their own agenda of aggrandizement. In my talk, I will place the Battle of Plataia in the context of the corresponding local and regional rivalries, violent and non-violent. I will argue, in a nutshell, that experiences in the second half of the 6th century were critical to how communities positioned themselves in the Persian War – and on a battlefield that was located in the very center of their former quarrels. In the aftermath of Plataia, their local motivations were of course buried under all-pervasive discourses of freedom of the Hellenes and allegations of betrayal of their cause.