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A review by cryo_guy
Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece by Paul Anthony Cartledge
informative
medium-paced
4.25
I've heard Cartledge on BBC's In Our Time on several topics in the ancient Greek world, so when I saw this in Barnes and Noble I had to pick it up. I'm not a huge non-fiction reader, but I do dabble. I think the worst thing about nonfiction is that its often written for as accessible an audience as possible. Some authors pull it off really well, but others make a shitty story where there isn't one and end up with a shallow view of the topic. On the other end of the spectrum, specialized books don't get sold and even describing them to other people is a bit of a challenge. This book skirts the line well, and ends up with something I imagine is about as accessible as you can get when talking about a polis that-let alone the average person might only vaguely recall as the setting of Oedipus' story-seems to have unluckily lost its proponents and their works to the sands of time.
But first, let me share a story. As I was finishing the book, I took to sharing the details to various people in conversation. It's hard to know what to tell people about Thebes-obviously the first thing is that it's not the Egyptian Thebes. Maybe the second most common historical event people know about (excepting Oedipus) is the Peloponnesian War (PW or the Atheno-Peloponnesian war, if you prefer). However, I've begun to suspect people aren't as familiar with PW as I'd hoped and, on top of that, it's not that easy to describe Thebes' involvement in the war. After that, the more documented historical stuff is Thebes medizing in the Persian War (I'm sure people remember that!) or that it was razed by Alexander. So I sort of set myself up to mention those things and explain context if people seemed intrigued (they weren't). Then I was like well fine, if they don't want a historical angle, they aren't gonna like the associated social/religious/cultural angles of the period, at least we can go for mythology and related charter myth type deals. Everybody knows the Oedipus story, so you can mention that, but unfortunately placing it in Thebes doesnt really do a lot qua Thebes. It should! I mean, it means something to me. But I felt that it didn't really register with the average person. Then we move to the other big mythological event-no not the 7 against Thebes, you cheeky cur-Cadmus! Yes the first founding, or rather the second? well one of the two at any rate. Here, I think, there's an interesting connection in that the Phoenician syllabary was at one point (probably anachronistically) called Cadmeian letters, and that Cadmus was (allegedly) Phoenician and had (potentially) brought letters for the Greeks to adapt into the Greek alphabet (you know, after he forgot about rescuing his sister, Europa). The point being that Cadmus is at least worth remembering as a figure who represents (or suggests at a representation for) the interplay between the Greek and Phoenician civilizations in a pre-literate era. Cool! Now what about that story?
Right, well I was doing my short version in a group conversation of these things. The historical highlights seemed appealing enough to my listeners, but weren't provoking further discussions so I went with my big dogs, the mythology. Of course I could say lots about Oedipus' story, but Oedipus' story isn't about Thebes per se. So I went big with Cadmus and the alphabet. Well as it turns out, that did spawn additional conversation. Apparently one of my unwitting interlocutors had read (recently?) a book called The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image by a surgeon. It is described by wikipedia as a work of historical anthropology published in 1998. I was 8 at the time. So anyway, this person goes on to relate the central thesis of that book which is really not worth putting out into the world again, but alas for the purposes of this story I must. Loosely it is, once the alphabet was invented it reoriented the human brain away from being intuitive and this led to the loss of the previous gendered structure of society in the hunter-gatherer way of life where women had greater importance and goddess cults were more prominent. They went on, citing the various examples the book posits that support this misguided theory such as the distribution of rods and cones in the eyes of males vs females, the description of hunter-gatherer society (how topical), and how the loss of our connection with the intuitive aspect of our brains can be felt in the modern era (another right brain/left brain thing, oof). Well, I bet that sort of sentiment appeals to a lot of people. But let me tell you, as someone a little more interested in dealing with what small truths we can glean from the reliable facts we do have at our disposal, the least appealing thing for me to hear when I start a conversation about a real historical place is some cockamamie lizard-brain theory about how shapes in our eyes prove that the Minoans had a matriarchal society and some dude inventing the alphabet ruined it for future societies everywhere. Nevertheless, the one thing I thought to venture, to steer us away from this roiling thundercloud of pseudoscientific anthropology was to comment on the transition of pre-literate oral poetry to post-literate poetry in ancient Greece. And I would have brought up Simonides more thoroughly, but I felt that enough was enough. It did make me wonder though, about nonfiction books and the nonfiction genre.
At any rate, let's return to the book at hand, which I'm happy to say, suffers none of the worst accusations I've made about poor quality nonfiction books. If anything, what this book does suffer from is being a bit dry at times. There were some sections of the PW chapter that got even me a bit unfocused. Most everything else was spot on. It doesn't have the most groundbreaking of conclusions, but it is stalwartly working against a markedly Athenocentric view of Greece throughout history. In the process, it does a great job cultivating a sense of identity for Thebes and vetting the primary sources we do have to give a fuller picture of how Thebes operated and changed over the centuries. In that respect, there lots of interesting social, religious, and political nuances that Cartledge elucidates. The only other thing I might be critical of the book for is that while it is as accessible as a book can be on Thebes, taking pains to define and contextualize many Greek words that would be familiar to those with more experience, is that some of the plays mentioned are given extended summaries that I found a bit redundant. In any case, an easy problem to fix by just skimming through those sections.
Yes, I think the strength of the book was leaning on its pro-Theban perspective and shedding light on rather familiar events but from the Theban angle. To that end, I enjoyed the book and had a great time with it. It's a shame we don't know more about Thebes as it seems to have had a unique federalization of its region of Beoetia. Reading the historical sections inspired me to bring home my Herodotus and Thucydides for rereading, if I ever find time for that!
The book is definitely worth a read for those interested in Thebes (and the ancient to Classical periods of Greece) and its got a great cover to boot. I was inspired enough to subsequently pick up Romm's book The Sacred Band when I glimpsed it at another bookstore. So it seems that this year might be my year of Thebes--if I can get through War and Peace in time :D
I also wanted to add a few memorable things that I got outta this book.
1. There's a discussion in the early part about rival oral epic traditions. I had thought that it was all one big amalgam that individual rhapsodes tailored regionally to appeal to their audience. But Cartledge suggests that there were in fact rival traditions, that Thebes may have had such a separate epic that was about the 7 against Thebes and other things of which now we only have mentions. At any rate, interesting point to refine my perspective on this period of epic traditions.
2. There's an interesting bit about a mystery cult popular at Thebes I hadn't heard of, the Kabeiroi. Love a good mystery cult and promises of afterlife.
3. Epaminondas and Pelopidas (the Pericles' of Thebes, basically) were very cool to learn about. I don't think I'd ever given them much thought.
4. Lots about Plataea, we love Plataea.
5. Cool stuff about Pindar, another author I need to revisit.
But first, let me share a story. As I was finishing the book, I took to sharing the details to various people in conversation. It's hard to know what to tell people about Thebes-obviously the first thing is that it's not the Egyptian Thebes. Maybe the second most common historical event people know about (excepting Oedipus) is the Peloponnesian War (PW or the Atheno-Peloponnesian war, if you prefer). However, I've begun to suspect people aren't as familiar with PW as I'd hoped and, on top of that, it's not that easy to describe Thebes' involvement in the war. After that, the more documented historical stuff is Thebes medizing in the Persian War (I'm sure people remember that!) or that it was razed by Alexander. So I sort of set myself up to mention those things and explain context if people seemed intrigued (they weren't). Then I was like well fine, if they don't want a historical angle, they aren't gonna like the associated social/religious/cultural angles of the period, at least we can go for mythology and related charter myth type deals. Everybody knows the Oedipus story, so you can mention that, but unfortunately placing it in Thebes doesnt really do a lot qua Thebes. It should! I mean, it means something to me. But I felt that it didn't really register with the average person. Then we move to the other big mythological event-no not the 7 against Thebes, you cheeky cur-Cadmus! Yes the first founding, or rather the second? well one of the two at any rate. Here, I think, there's an interesting connection in that the Phoenician syllabary was at one point (probably anachronistically) called Cadmeian letters, and that Cadmus was (allegedly) Phoenician and had (potentially) brought letters for the Greeks to adapt into the Greek alphabet (you know, after he forgot about rescuing his sister, Europa). The point being that Cadmus is at least worth remembering as a figure who represents (or suggests at a representation for) the interplay between the Greek and Phoenician civilizations in a pre-literate era. Cool! Now what about that story?
Right, well I was doing my short version in a group conversation of these things. The historical highlights seemed appealing enough to my listeners, but weren't provoking further discussions so I went with my big dogs, the mythology. Of course I could say lots about Oedipus' story, but Oedipus' story isn't about Thebes per se. So I went big with Cadmus and the alphabet. Well as it turns out, that did spawn additional conversation. Apparently one of my unwitting interlocutors had read (recently?) a book called The Alphabet Versus the Goddess: The Conflict Between Word and Image by a surgeon. It is described by wikipedia as a work of historical anthropology published in 1998. I was 8 at the time. So anyway, this person goes on to relate the central thesis of that book which is really not worth putting out into the world again, but alas for the purposes of this story I must. Loosely it is, once the alphabet was invented it reoriented the human brain away from being intuitive and this led to the loss of the previous gendered structure of society in the hunter-gatherer way of life where women had greater importance and goddess cults were more prominent. They went on, citing the various examples the book posits that support this misguided theory such as the distribution of rods and cones in the eyes of males vs females, the description of hunter-gatherer society (how topical), and how the loss of our connection with the intuitive aspect of our brains can be felt in the modern era (another right brain/left brain thing, oof). Well, I bet that sort of sentiment appeals to a lot of people. But let me tell you, as someone a little more interested in dealing with what small truths we can glean from the reliable facts we do have at our disposal, the least appealing thing for me to hear when I start a conversation about a real historical place is some cockamamie lizard-brain theory about how shapes in our eyes prove that the Minoans had a matriarchal society and some dude inventing the alphabet ruined it for future societies everywhere. Nevertheless, the one thing I thought to venture, to steer us away from this roiling thundercloud of pseudoscientific anthropology was to comment on the transition of pre-literate oral poetry to post-literate poetry in ancient Greece. And I would have brought up Simonides more thoroughly, but I felt that enough was enough. It did make me wonder though, about nonfiction books and the nonfiction genre.
At any rate, let's return to the book at hand, which I'm happy to say, suffers none of the worst accusations I've made about poor quality nonfiction books. If anything, what this book does suffer from is being a bit dry at times. There were some sections of the PW chapter that got even me a bit unfocused. Most everything else was spot on. It doesn't have the most groundbreaking of conclusions, but it is stalwartly working against a markedly Athenocentric view of Greece throughout history. In the process, it does a great job cultivating a sense of identity for Thebes and vetting the primary sources we do have to give a fuller picture of how Thebes operated and changed over the centuries. In that respect, there lots of interesting social, religious, and political nuances that Cartledge elucidates. The only other thing I might be critical of the book for is that while it is as accessible as a book can be on Thebes, taking pains to define and contextualize many Greek words that would be familiar to those with more experience, is that some of the plays mentioned are given extended summaries that I found a bit redundant. In any case, an easy problem to fix by just skimming through those sections.
Yes, I think the strength of the book was leaning on its pro-Theban perspective and shedding light on rather familiar events but from the Theban angle. To that end, I enjoyed the book and had a great time with it. It's a shame we don't know more about Thebes as it seems to have had a unique federalization of its region of Beoetia. Reading the historical sections inspired me to bring home my Herodotus and Thucydides for rereading, if I ever find time for that!
The book is definitely worth a read for those interested in Thebes (and the ancient to Classical periods of Greece) and its got a great cover to boot. I was inspired enough to subsequently pick up Romm's book The Sacred Band when I glimpsed it at another bookstore. So it seems that this year might be my year of Thebes--if I can get through War and Peace in time :D
I also wanted to add a few memorable things that I got outta this book.
1. There's a discussion in the early part about rival oral epic traditions. I had thought that it was all one big amalgam that individual rhapsodes tailored regionally to appeal to their audience. But Cartledge suggests that there were in fact rival traditions, that Thebes may have had such a separate epic that was about the 7 against Thebes and other things of which now we only have mentions. At any rate, interesting point to refine my perspective on this period of epic traditions.
2. There's an interesting bit about a mystery cult popular at Thebes I hadn't heard of, the Kabeiroi. Love a good mystery cult and promises of afterlife.
3. Epaminondas and Pelopidas (the Pericles' of Thebes, basically) were very cool to learn about. I don't think I'd ever given them much thought.
4. Lots about Plataea, we love Plataea.
5. Cool stuff about Pindar, another author I need to revisit.