LAKE (ἡ Βοιβηὶς λίμνη)
MELODY WAUKE
University of Notre Dame
Lake in eastern THESSALY, west of Magnesia and Mt. PELION (BA 55 D1; Müller I, 318–19). In Herodotus’ explanation of how all of Thessaly was formerly a giant lake, he notes that the RIVERS flowing down from the surrounding mountains and Lake Boebeis were at that time not yet distinct and thus without names (7.129.3; cf. Strabo 9.5.2/C430). HOMER in the Catalogue of Ships mentions the lake, on whose shores Pherae sat (Il. 2.711); there was also a city named Boebe (Strabo 9.5.15/C436). The modern Lake Karla has recently been partially restored, after it was drained by the Greek government in 1962.
SEE ALSO: Geology; Magnesia in Greece; Peneius River
BOEOTIANS (Βοιωτοί, οἱ)
MAURO MOGGI
University of Siena
Boeotia refers to the region of central Greece bounded by PHOCIS (and Mt. PARNASSUS) and Locris on the north, Attica on the south; the large island of EUBOEA lay just off the coast to the east. For those approaching from the north, after the mountainous area around THERMOPYLAE and DELPHI, Boeotia provided relatively easy access to southern Greece. In the ARCHAIC AGE and classical period, THEBES was its most important city.
The Boeotians appear for the first time in Greek literature at the outset of the Catalogue of Ships (Hom. Il. 2.484–510), and their entry occupies the first and most relevant place in HOMER’s review—in stark opposition to the secondary role played by the Boeotians themselves in the rest of the poem. In fact, the section dedicated to the Boeotians is the largest among those that Homer reserves to the participants of the expedition: the Boeotians’ contingent consists of 29 poleis, 5 leaders, and 50 ships (120 men per ship: Thuc. 1.10.4). ORCHOMENUS, not yet part of Boeotia (Hdt. 8.34; Thuc. 4.76.3), is listed separately (Il. 2.511–16). It is due to Orchomenus’ past Mycenaean greatness that we know of ancient rivalries between Orchomenus and Thebes, resolved in Greek MYTH by HERACLES’ intervention in favor of Thebes. THUCYDIDES (1.12.3) knew of a tradition that had the Boeotians coming from the Thessalian city of Arne and settling in their historical location about sixty years after the sack of TROY.
Some passages in ancient authors and in Herodotus in particular (5.77.4, ethnea of Boeotians and Chalcidians—this occurs in an ORACLE reported by Herodotus; 9.15.1, boiōtarchai; cf. 5.74.2; 6.108.4–5) have been taken to indicate the existence of a Boeotian ethnos, with some form of state organization and elected federal magistrates (cf. Thuc. 4.91). However, these testimonies are ambiguous and must be read without anachronistic assumptions (federal state, confederation of states, league) or the application of categories derived from later examples. It is more accurate to picture a people that possessed proper regional and cultural identities, manifested through common practices (military activity, currency, cults), but that witnessed internal tensions among poleis and hegemonic attempts from some of them. The notion of a real koinon, organized around the leadership of the Thebans who responded with extreme severity to any manifestation of dissent, is generally accepted for parts of the fifth and fourth centuries BCE (446–386, 378–338). The first period came to an end with the King’s Peace; the second ended with the Battle of Chaeronea. If the koinon survived the destruction of the city by Alexander the Great in 335, it was re‐organized with a new capital in Onchestus.
Herodotus shows little interest in and great hostility against the Boeotian ethnos, which was guilty of an unforgivable original sin: the choice to “MEDIZE” in the face of XERXES’ invasion (481–479). The Boeotians as an ethnos only appear in two actions before the narrative of Xerxes’ invasion, and in both instances they are attacking ATHENS (with the Spartans, 5.74.2; with the Chalcidians, 5.77). Even when Herodotus praises them for fighting bravely, it comes in reference to PLATAEA—again, against the Athenians, and the Thebans are further credited with using their CAVALRY to protect the Persian retreat (9.67–68). Such behavior is contrasted with the brave and Panhellenic responses of Plataea and THESPIAE (7.131–32, 202, 222; 8.66.2) that defended Greece at the cost of their own destruction by the Persians (8.50.2) and then, after the wars, antagonism from the Thebans themselves (Thuc. 3.68, 4.133.1; Xen. Hell. 6.3.1, 5; 6.4.10), whose obsequious servility before the Great King (Hdt. 7.233.1–2; 8.50.2) had brought them no benefits.
SEE ALSO: Chalcis; Ethnicity; Panhellenism; Plutarch; polis
FURTHER READING
1 Buck, Robert J. 1979. A History of Boeotia. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.
2 Buck, Robert J. 1993. Boiotia and the Boiotian League, 423–371 B.C. Edmonton: University of Alberta Press.
3 Buckler, John, and Hans Beck. 2008. Central Greece and the Politics of Power in the Fourth Century B.C. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
4 Moggi, Mauro. 2011. “I Beoti e la Beozia in Erodoto.” In Ethne, identità e tradizioni: la “terza” Grecia e l’Occidente, edited by Luisa Breglia, Alda Moleti, Maria Luisa Napolitano, and Renata Calce, 1:253–69. Pisa: Edizioni ETS.
5 Moggi, Mauro, and Massimo Osanna, eds. 2010. Pausania. Guida della Grecia, libro IX: la Beozia. Milan: Fondazione Valla‐Mondadori.
BOGES (Βόγης, ὁ)
HENRY P. COLBURN
Metropolitan Museum of Art
Boges was the Persian governor of EÏON in THRACE. According to Herodotus (7.107), when the city was besieged by the Athenians under CIMON THE YOUNGER in 476/5 BCE (cf. Thuc. 1.98.1), Boges refused to surrender, and instead killed his entire FAMILY, threw his WEALTH into the river STRYMON, and jumped into a pyre. XERXES considered the deed “noble and courageous,” Herodotus says, adding that the Persians continue to PRAISE Boges down to his own day. PLUTARCH (Cim. 7.2) calls him “Boutes.” The action at Eïon is one of the few post‐Persian War events mentioned by Herodotus.
SEE ALSO: Courage; Delian League; Siege Warfare; Suicide; Time
FURTHER READING
1 Balcer, Jack Martin. 1993. A Prosopographical Study of the Ancient Persians Royal and Noble c. 550–450 B.C., 155. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press.
BOLBINITIC, see SEBENNYTUS
BOOK DIVISIONS
AURÉLIEN PULICE
Université Bordeaux–Montaigne
We inherited Herodotus’ Histories as a whole divided into nine books named after the nine Muses. This division has been much‐discussed by modern scholars but is generally recognized as post‐Herodotean, dating to Hellenistic Alexandria (Hemmerdinger 1951; Cagnazzi 1975). Irigoin (1997, 128) has interestingly suggested an earlier date, attributing Herodotus’ (and THUCYDIDES’) book divisions to the Attic librarians of the fourth century BCE. Baldwin’s (1984) defense of an original nine‐book division on Herodotus’ part remains isolated. On the use of Herodotus’ book divisions in ancient quotations and on the general issue of book division in ancient times, see Higbie (2010).
No other division
