Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece

This review won't be marked as "verified purchase", because I was sent a pre-release copy by someone who works in a bookstore. Having studied ancient Greek and read most of the classics including the "Theban Cycle" of plays, I was thrilled to receive this book. The author's background seemed to promise a fascinating story.

Reading it, however, was another experience. The author seemed unable to write two consecutive sentences without including a section in parentheses or within double-dashes, where the author either shows an alternate wording or feels the need to explain something that would be better included in a footnote. This made for a very disjointed reading experience which, for me, made the book close to unreadable. Good editing could have improved this book considerably. Possibly the editor was cowed by the author's undeniably strong academic credentials.

So far as actual content, the author seems almost to engage in a stream of consciousness exposition, where he jumps from one topic to another without adequately covering the prior topic. He also assumes more knowledge on the part of the reader than may be the case. In many places, it feels as though the author is simply showing off his deep knowledge of the subject.

Given that Thebes had a long-running rivalry with nearby Athens, and whose (perhaps mythical) history includes the stories of Oedipus, the Sphinx, Heracles, Seven Against Thebes and many more, this book should be riveting. Alas, the author's disjointed, unedited, writing style undercuts much of the promise of this book.

I’m writing this review in the style of the book.

Why? Because the "style" is what I found most "objectionable." For one thing, a ridiculous number of quotation "marks" are arbitrarily inserted to make your reading "experience" that much more difficult. For another (this is my "second" point), every sentence (or nearly every one) is interrupted by remarks in parentheses (the etymology of "parentheses" will be discussed in a later review) that make it hard to follow the author's "train of thought" ("train of thought" is a metaphor). We (by "we" I mean the readers) are constantly being told that some given "subject" that was just introduced will be covered "later"; this creates the impression that the author is "hopping around" from one topic to another, like a bee buzzing from petal to petal (the comparison to "bees" is a simile) without (ever) "alighting."

Finally, there’s a (curious) "incompleteness" even in "minor" things. Discussing the fact that the clay "tablets" (clay will be discussed in detail in another review) of Thebes were preserved by a fire that destroyed the city, the author forgets to explain "how" they were "preserved" (the heat of the fire "baked" the tablets, hardening them to the point where they became almost indestructible). Such "trivial" omissions just make the book (that much) harder to "struggle through."

Are you tired of the quotation marks and parenthetical asides yet? You’ll get 300 pages of them in "Thebes."

Marvelous book. This book clicks all the buttons. The author lays out the history of Thebes from the mythical through the Romans. Each chapter is like a wonderful lecture by a college professor with asides and quips that move the book beyond a dry recitation of dates and battles. There is a lot of information here, much more than you usually get in a general population history, but the author successfully steers clear of what could have become an academic survey for the specialist. He made all this information accessible to the general interest reader, and, although he lost me on his references more than once, it usually had the effect of piquing my interest to follow up on the reference. A good sign for a teacher. There is good information on the rest of ancient Greece as well, setting the context of events in, and involving, Thebes. He concludes with a brief analysis of the perception and portrayal of Thebes in modern culture and art, which was an interesting and unusual bonus. Good read.

An amazing read! Well put togther... love the theme of anti Boeotian sediments by fellow Hellenes. Exactly what i had imagined... belongs with the best on the subject... no doubt. There is a small editorial error... Antigonus Monopholthalmos is not Cassander's Father, that was weird.

This book lays out the history of Sparta in a clear and concise manner and is the best summary I've found, by far.

I very much enjoyed this long overdue text on the heretofore understudied ancient Greek city-state of Thebes. It is useful for the reader to already be familiar with Ancient Greece in order to understand Thebes' importance in the larger picture.