Boeotia (historical region)

Beocia comprises the current peripheral unit of Beocia.

Boeotia (in ancient Greek, Βοιωτία, Boiotia) is a region of Western Greece that corresponds to a historical region of Ancient Greece. It stretches along the northern shore of the Gulf of Corinth, to the east of the historical regions of Aetolia and to the west of Attica.

Today it forms the western part of the Boeotia peripheral unit. The capital and main city in ancient times was Thebes. The Latin demonym was aonius.

Geography

Ancient Boeotia was bordered to the north by Locris, to the northeast by the Euboean channel, to the west by Phocis, to the south by the Gulf of Corinth, the Megaride, and Attica. The southeastern part of Boeotia was mountainous, and the other areas were rather flat. In the center of the flat area was Lake Copaide, dried up in the early 1900s, whose floods were very favorable for agricultural productivity, although they made the area a swampy territory affected by malaria. Unlike other regions of ancient Greece, Boeotia's economy was almost exclusively agricultural. The main mountains that surround Boeotia are the Parnaso, Helicón and Citerón mounts; and, among the rivers, the Cefiso River stands out, which fed Lake Copaide.

The main cities were Thebes, Orchomenus, Haliarto, Thespias, Acrefias, Coronea, Plataea, Eutresis and Tanagra.

Although Boeotia was home to eminent people (for example, Hesiod, Pindar, Corina, Epaminondas or Plutarch), for the Athenians "boeotia" was synonymous with small and stupid person. The contempt was based on the economic structure of the two societies: Boeotia was an agricultural region, and rural dwellers were often scorned by merchants and burghers.

The language spoken in Boeotia was a particular Aeolian dialect, and Corina's poetry was written in Aeolian; Pindar adopted, however, the Doric dialect.

History

Original piece of Beocia.

Traditions indicate that initially the barbarian tribes of the Aonios, Ectenas, Themics, Leleges and Hiantes lived in this region, with Pelasgic roots. The Minias and the Cadmeans later populated Orchomenus and Thebes. Both cities headed two separate countries, each in its own valley or plain.

Then came the Boeotians, a group of Aeolians who emigrated from Phthiotis expelled by the Thessalians, sixty years after the capture of Troy according to Thucydides, although in the catalogue of ships of In the Iliad, the Boeotians form one of the contingents participating in the war and are already located in Boeotia. Thus, they were incorporated into the Minias and Cadmeos.

The Boeotians initially had representatives in the Amphictyony of Antela. On the other hand, from at least the 6th century B.C. there are indications of alliances and common institutions between the Boeotian cities, which crystallized in the Boeotian League, which was initially led by Thebes.

One of the initially Boeotian cities, Plataea, was besieged by the Thebans, but the Plataeans were able to defend themselves and the city eventually broke away from the Boeotians and came under the protection of Athens around 519 BC. C.

In 480 B.C. Boeotia was occupied by Xerxes I of Persia after the battle of Thermopylae and the cities of Thespias and Plataea were burned (accused as enemies by Thebes, where the party favorable to Persia had prevailed). After the battle of Plataea, in 479 B.C. C., Thebes was besieged by the Spartans and other contingents; the Theban leader Ataginus fled and his successor Timegenidas led the resistance. The city was occupied after 20 days of siege, Timegénidas and his collaborators were executed by order of the Spartan Pausanias.

Later, the confrontation between Sparta and Athens led Sparta to support the Boeotians as a way of weakening Athens' influence in central Greece. In 457 B.C. C. The Spartan regent Nicomedes marched to the region, but was defeated by Pericles in Tanagra; two months later, the Boeotians were defeated at Oenophita, and democratic regimes allied to Athens were installed in the region. In 447 B.C. C. some of the exiled Boeotian leaders had returned to Orcómeno, Chaeronea, and other Boeotian towns and the alliance with Athens was broken. The Athenians occupied Chaeronea, but the Boeotian victory at Coronea forced them to evacuate the region.

From then on, the Boeotian League or confederation reappeared, with Thebes as the predominant city. Some characteristics of its operation are more precisely known in this period: in 395 B.C. C., was organized into eleven districts that served both for fiscal, political or military administration. Each of these circumscriptions or districts had the right to send a certain number of beotarchs -magistrates who led the league-, In addition, it consisted of a council made up of 660 members. The annual festival of the League was the Pambeocia, which took place in the temple of Athena Itonia, near Chaeronea.

Thebes again allied with Sparta in the Peloponnesian War (432 BC) and they attacked Plataea in 431 BC. C. without success. Finally Platea was conquered by the Spartans in 427 a. and the city was reincorporated into Boeotia. The Boeotian cities did not sign the peace treaty of Nicias (421 BC)

In 386 B.C. C., the peace of Antalcidas caused a new dissolution of the Boeotian League, which would be reconstituted in 373 BC. C. In 379 a. C. the head of the aristocratic party of Thebes, Archías, was assassinated, and a democratic revolution led by Pelopidas and Epaminondas soon broke out. The Spartans fortified themselves in the fortress of Cadmea, but were eventually driven from Thebes. In 377 B.C. C., Thebes entered the Second Athenian League.

Epaminondas ruled the city, which exercised hegemony in Boeotia; he destroyed Plataea, annexed Thespia, and reclaimed Oropos (374 BC). Epaminondas was then made a beotarch, and the peace treaty of the summer of 371 B.C. C. demanded the recognition of the Boeotian League and when they were attacked by the Spartans (for forcing them to sign peace) the Thebans won the battle of Leuctra (summer 371 BC) and Phocis, Elis, Achaia and Thessaly (and later Arcadia) allied with Boeotia.

Thebes helped Arcadia and invaded Messenia (which was declared independent), but failed against Sparta. In 369 B.C. C., occupied Pelene and devastated Troezen and Epidaurus, but the Theban chiefs, Ismenio and Pelopidas were defeated by the hegemonic tyrant of Thessaly, Alexander of Feres, a defeat that was avenged the following year by Epaminondas himself with a great victory. Instead, in 367 B.C. C. and 366 a. C. The Theban expedition to the Peloponnese was unsuccessful. In 365 B.C. C., the Thebans defeated King Ptolemy Alorita of Macedonia (who was executed) and restored Perdiccas III; soon after, Pelopidas the Theban entered Thessaly again and defeated Alexander at Cynoscephales.

They also made a naval expedition to Byzantium, Chios, Rhodes, and Ceos, which became allies, but only for a very short time. During the expedition the oligarchs (mainly from Orcómeno) attempted a coup that failed, and Orcómeno was destroyed. In 363 B.C. C., Thebes made one last expedition to the Peloponnese.

In 362 B.C. C., the city of Tegea, an ally of Thebes, faced Mantinea, an ally of Sparta, and Epaminondas ran to help his allies, and won the battle of Mantinea (July 12) where Epaminondas lost his life and ended up being killed. made the brief period of Theban hegemony in Greece.

In 338 B.C. C. Boeotia was submitted by Filipo II of Macedonia, after the battle of Chaeronea. Alexander the Great destroyed Thebes (335 BC) The cities became progressively depopulated.

In the middle of the 2nd century B.C. C., the Boeotian League was reestablished and allied with the Achaean League, but the Roman victory at Scorphea in 146 BC. C. put an end to the League. Boeotia was incorporated into Rome and made ager publicus.

During the empire, only Tanagra and Thespia remained as cities and the rest were either ruins or insignificant places. Tanagra and Thespia were free cities under the rule of Rome.