circa 300-200 BCE
Bronze 10 mm, 1,07 g
Thebe plays not a small role in Homer’s Iliad. Reputed to have been founded by Herakles after his own sack of Troy, which occurred before the Trojan War, he named it after the city of his birth, Thebes. Evidently Herakles was so powerful that he was able to sack Troy by himself, whereas it took the combined forces of the Greeks ten years to accomplish the same.
During the Trojan War, the city was ruled by a King Eetion, who was on friendly terms with Troy. In fact, he gave his daughter Andromache to Hektor, and she is an important character in the poem.
Unfortunately, Achilles and his merry gang attacked Thebe and killed King Eetion. Among the women taken by Achilles was Chryseis, who was given to Agamemnon. He was so enthralled by her that he boasted about preferring her in his bed than his wife Klytemnestra.
Her father, who was a priest, came to Agamemnon and offered him riches and whatever he could afford to have his daughter back, but Agamemnon brushed him off and even expounded on what he did to her in bed. Dejected, her father went home.
Chryseis, distraught, prayed to Apollo (for whom her father was a priest) to improve her situation, and Apollo answered by sending a plague upon the Greeks. Thereafter, Agamemnon tasked Odysseus with giving Chryseis back to her father, and took Briseis from Achilles as compensation. Of course, we all know how that turned out…
Not much is known about Thebe during Hellenistic times. Strabo mentions that by his time it was deserted.