(Not) A Postcard from 7-Gated Thebes

Thebes in Greek tragedy comes over as a deeply provincial if prosperous inland city, far from the sea, run by a couple of reactionary elite families who endlessly interbreed and are averse to change. Thebes today, when I visited on Wednesday, seems at least psychologically not to have changed very much. 

What we Expected?

One is greeted at the railway station by what my companion Dr Magdalena Zira told me were remarkably aggressive graffiti telling the viewer to go home or else. We were then assaulted by a very young girl begging importunately with a tiny baby in her arms. Creepy, to say the least.

Despite the magnificent new Archaeological Museum, packed with amazing artefacts such as these funeral chests painted with heartbreaking scenes of bereaved women, tourism has never taken off. There is no possibility of purchasing a postcard even at the Museum, let alone a kiosk: “no call for it, Madam”. 

The streets are named after the (very few) famous Thebans in history, including the peerless poet of sycophantic odes for plutocratic and tyrannical overlords, Pindar. Others take the names familiar from Greek tragedy—Polynices Street, Eteocles Street. 

But the venues immortalized in Greek tragedy are meagre and overgrown piles of rubble. The palace which Dionysus rocked with an earthquake in Euripides’ Bacchae seems never to have recovered, although the stories dramatized in Sophocles’ Oedipus and Antigone and Euripides’ Phoenician Women all require sets portraying the magnificent palace of Cadmus, rebuilt after the Bacchae earthquake. 

The Palace of Pentheus, Oedipus, Creon...

It is hard to imagine the blinded Oedipus or the fulminating Antigone or the lamenting Creon appearing outside this rubbish tip, although the taxi rank there is named after Cadmus.

Kadmos Taxis and Poseidon Logistics

The wall with 7 gates which provides the setting of Aeschylus’ Seven against Thebes has entirely gone, except for the base of one turret of the Dircean gate, which Capaneus was scaling with a shield hubristically inscribed "I will burn this city" when he was blasted by Zeus with a thunderbolt. 

 The most evocative site is the remains of the peak from which Tiresias the prophet scrutinized the flight of birds outside the temple of Apollo Ismenios. There are about four bits of Doric pillar to be seen. Nobody else was at this hugely important site except one of the two men named Sakis we met (we met a total of 3). 

Tiresias Woz Here

Nor do they care about their pre-Christian heritage. The Electricians' Union Theban Branch office displays a picture of Aristotle inscribed (in tiny writing under top right flame) confusingly with the name of an earlier natural scientist, Thales. Once you've seen one ancient Greek egghead, you've presumably seen them all.

I am a supporter of all things Greek and wonder why they don’t help their economy by exploiting the incredible touristic potential of places like Thebes. Any one of these sites or artefacts would be enough to prompt a Theme Park in the UK. But the Thebans say they like things just the way they are. And have always been.