1. Early Christian times (4th – 6th c. )

1.1. The city

The geographical location of Thebes has always been of strategic importance, with the city situated on the crossroads of land and sea communication routes.

The citadel, Kadmeia – a long and narrow hill inhabited continuously since prehistoric times – provided safety due to its naturally defended position, since it rose with abrupt slopes between two rivers, Dirke to the west and Chrysorroa to the east, which could play the role of natural barriers. The citadel as much as the lower city were protected with fortifications.

Gradually, however, the city shrank and the living area was restricted to the hill of Kadmeia, to the point that Strabo, at the turning of the 1^st century B.C. to the 1^st century C.E., reports that Thebes was a large village at the most. The outlook of a village still remained during the visit of Pausanias, in the 2^nd century A.D. His testimony that "Thebes had seven gates on the precinct of the city wall, all of which remain up to our times", is taken by most of the scholars as a fact that Kadmeia remained fortified in his era.

During the raids of Alarich in Boeotia in 396 A.D., only Thebes was left intact, because he was unable to seize the city, according to the historian Zosimos. It seems, therefore, that the ancient walls of Kadmeia still stood strong. For that reason apparently a repair was not deemed necessary when Justinian realized a program of large-scale fortification works. As it has been clarified, the work of Procopios "On buildings" refers to the Thessalian and not the Boeotian Thebes.

1.2. The buildings

Until the middle of the 6^th century, Thebes was experiencing a period of relative peace and prosperity. This is attested by the strong foundations of large buildings upon previous ones, reusing their materials, adorned in many cases with floor mosaics, products of a local workshop. The most famous of all, namely the one with the depiction of months and hunting scenes and with the important inscription mentioning Demetrios, who conceived the plan, Epiphanes, who executed it, and priest Paul, who was the soul of the entire project, has been attributed to a basilica, although the apse of the sanctuary has not been unearthed yet. Part of a large apse dated to the early Christian period, the only one in Thebes until today, has been recently revealed in the old city cemetery, on the northeastern edge of the church of Luke the Evangelist. The area is considered to have always been a pilgrimage shrine, since it is believed that the evangelist Luke was buried in the 2^nd-c. marble sarcophagus found in the diakonikon. Beneath the sarcophagus a tomb, used until recently as an ossuary, has been discovered. It is a cist tomb, built with large stone slabs, but the fact that there were no finds makes its dating more difficult. It is probable, however, to be contemporary with the early Christian basilica. The existence of basilicas inside the city is also attested by sculptural evidence, dated to this period, yet of unknown provenance.

Despite the quite large number of almost fifty Early Christian sites traced until now inside and outside of Kadmeia, their identification remains problematic. Four baths have been identified with certainty, one of which is decorated with mosaics. Important enough are the artifacts gathered from the excavation of certain houses, cooking and storage vessels, shields of bread and pestles (grinders) together with marble bowls used as mortars, necessary to any household for crushing and grinding cereals, pulses, fruits etc. Besides, clay loom weights and spindles, as well as parts of hives reveal that the inhabitants were occupied with weaving and beekeeping. Outside the city there were many cemeteries, while the excavation of at least one catacomb is very important.

1.3. Church hierarchy

We do not know the pace of the christianization in Thebes, although already in the 1^st century A.D. Apostle Paul’s Letter to the Romans mentions Rufus, who became the first bishop. The condition of the Church remains unknown, too. In the bishopric catalogues of the Fifth Ecumenical Councilat Constantinople under Justinian (553), the name of the bishop of Thebes is absent, while the vast and rich in information correspondence of pope Gregory I the Great (590-604) makes no mention of the Boeotian Thebes or of its Church.

1.4. The earthquake

A very strong earthquake that hit Boeotia in 551 A.D., did not inflict any serious blow upon the flourishing urban centre of Thebes, according to the historian Procopios. Archaeological research has attested that the earthquake caused the destruction of a building with mosaic floor decoration. Part of the mosaic had fallen 2 meters deep, while in the surface of the rest of it there was a layer of destruction with strong signs of fire, many tiles and mud-bricks.

2. Transitional period (7th – 8th c.)

The abandonment of urban life came later, as a result of Slavic invasions, placed chronologically around 580 thanks to archaeological findings and the concealment of hoards.

About the extent and the impact of the Slavic settlements in Thebes and Boeotia in general, no estimation can be made since written records, sigillographic and epigraphic evidence are totally lacking. After the first destructive invasion, attested by archaeological evidence, Slavs, who nevertheless kept invading in waves, as it is known, must have settled in the countryside and mainly around lake Kopais, since it has been observed that they preferred areas near rivers and swamps.

The reduce of population, the lack of social hierarchy, the decline of the urban way of life, the adaptation of the principle of self-sufficiency regarding the everyday needs and the change in the nature of transactions, which seem to have given way to exchanges (hence the lack of coins), constitute some of the major elements of the new way of life.

Some of the Thebans decided to stay in the city. This is attested by few pottery finds, as well as by some architectural members gradually gathered in the Archaeological Museum of Thebes, most of which, unfortunately, are of an unknown provenance. Except of those inhabitants who remained in their birthplaces, trying to adjust to new life conditions, loyal to their religious traditions, many moved to the countryside to cultivate the land. That is why we have an increase in the numbers of rural settlements, as it has been attested through systematic field surveys conducted by foreign Universities for almost the last 30 years.

The lack of coins in the 7^th and 8^th century, for the time being, is complete. Sigillographic evidence of the late 8^th c., however, such as a lead seal of a lord and a silver disk with the bust of Eirene the Athenian and the inscription of a "chartoularios tou sakelliou", constitute evidence for the established and continuous presence of a central authority in Thebes, preparing the ground for the transition of Kadmeia to a medieval urban center.

3. Transition of Thebes to a medieval urban center (9th c.)

The 9th century was a period of total administrative restoration throughout the largest part of the Balkans and of course the south mainland Greece. Meanwhile, it was the period of a new ecclesiastical administration, prepared after the crisis of Iconoclasm since 726-787.

During this century, the transition of Thebes into a medieval urban center took place, including coin circulation, social stratification, remarkable building activity, industrial activity, rise in production and commerce.

In the late 9^th century, Thebes was fixed as seat of the strategos of the theme of Hellas, while the Church of Thebes was promoted to an autocephalous bishopric.

The sense of security brought the scattered population back to the city, while gradually attracted state officials and ambitious landlords as well, who contributed to the demographic rise. During the reign of Basil I, founder of the Macedonian dynasty, the church of Saint Gregory the Theologian was built after a donation by the imperial kandidatos Basil (871/2). The sculpture workshop based in Thebes, continuously received new orders. At least eleven 9^th-century temple entablatures reveal a huge rise in church building, something which is also attested by archaeological research. Houses have also been identified, with some of them exhibiting sculpted decoration, while towards the end of the century a workshop appears in the city’s outskirts, probably for the dyeing of fabrics, as well as a water mill which reveals an intensification of production.

4. Byzantine Thebes. Period of prosperity (10th – 12th c.)

During the first half of the 10^th c. the area suffered from the invasions of Bulgars, under tsar Symeon (918) and the Hungarians (943), who are mentioned in the very important text of the life of St Loukas the Steiriotes. At the end of the century, in 996/97, a new invasion of Bulgars took place, under tsar Samuel. The new conditions of insecurity are reflected in the drop of building activity and the decline of sculpture production.

4.1. Thebes as an ecclesiastical and administrative center

At the end of the 10^th – first half of the 11^th c. Thebes was promoted to the status of a metropolis. The metropolitan of Thebes is recorded for the first time in 1048 in the Charter of the religious Brotherhood of Panagia Nafpaktiotissa, which acted under the auspices of the monastery of Hosios Loukas. According to the Charter, refugees from Naupaktos, bringing with them the miraculous icon of Panagia Nafpaktiotissa, were settled in Thebes, where they founded the women’s monastery of Archangel Michael. The discovery in the south of the city, outside of the Kadmeia, of a Byzantine neighborhood with continuous habitation from the 11^th until themiddle of the 13^th c. including a monastic complex, in whose filling a column was found with the inscription Ο ΑΡΧ[ΑΓΓΕΛΟΣ] or ΑΡΧ[ΙΣΤΡΑΤΗΓΟΣ] ΜΙΧ[ΑΗΛ] Ο ΧΟΝΙΑΤΗΣ, allow the conclusion that it refers to the monastery mentioned in the Statute. The important text of the Charter is now kept at Palermo in Sicily, moved there probably after the sack of Thebes, in 1147, by Roger of Sicily.

During the mid-11^th century Thebes was an important administrative center and the living place of the lords who formed the local aristocracy. The Cadaster of Thebes, a fiscal cadaster of this period, provides as with their names and many information on the rural economy of the region.

4.2. Thebes as a center of commercial activity and silk-industry

The city, built amidst a fertile valley and privileged with a good road network, was about to become a major commercial center. In the various trade transactions, an important role was played by the Venetian traders, permanently settled in the city (at least 60 names are recorded until the end of the 13^th century), after the privileges granted to them with a chrysobullby emperors Alexios I Komnenos probably in 1082 and Alexios III Angelos in 1198. The significant demographic rise resulted in the expansion of the city outside the limits of the Kadmeia. In the so-called quarters of the Astegoi (Homeless), to the east of the Kadmeia, in addition to the unearthed houses, the foundations of a church have been traced, having the same form with that of the church of Panagia in the monastery of Hosios Loukas, only in a larger scale, actually the largest of all those excavated so far in Thebes.

However, it was the silk-industry, developed in the mid-11^th century that formed the main city resource for two centuries at least. Some basic factors gradually led to this development: the systematic culture of mulberry, the abundant water sources and the plants to extract the dyes, such as the kermes-oak (cochineal) and madder.

During the 12^th centuryThebes became famous for its silk-industry, surpassing Constantinople itself. The Byzantine sources of this period, Niketas Choniates and John Tzetzes, speak with admiration of the quality and colours of the fabrics produced by the Theban craftswomen. Jews were also occupied with the silk industry. It is known that since 1135 a thriving Jewish community was settled in Thebes. The city’s great prosperity attracted the interest of the ruler of Sicily, Roger II, who sacked it in 1147. Together with the rest of the booty, Greek and Jewish silk workers were transferred to Sicily. Nevertheless, Thebes quickly recovered and the silk-industry continued to issue products of excellent quality. In 1160 when the Hispano-Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela came to the city, the Jewish community counted 2000 persons, who were "the most skillful silk- and porphyry-workers in the entire Greece". An area west of the Kadmeia is still called Hebraica (‘of the Hebrews’), where the Jews must have been settled, working in the workshops unearthed in the same region.

4.3. The work of the metropolitan John Kaloktenis

Particular attention was paid to the city’s water supply towards the end of the century with the construction of an aqueduct, which brought water from the sources of the Ismenos river. This major work, which was unfortunately demolished in the early 20^th c. (we know its form through travelers’ depictions), is attributed to the active metropolitan John Kaloktenis. The latter was also responsible for the establishment of several charity foundations and of at least two churches (out of the fifteen which we know were functioning during the 12^th c.), with excellent painting decoration. There were many monasteries associated to him as well, according to information given by the metropolitan of Naupaktos John Apokaukos (1155-1238). A monastery, dedicated to Theotokos, was actually turned into a nunnery by Kaloktenis, with Dekane as its abbess.

5. Period of Frankish occupation (13th c. – first half of the 15th c.)

For the events of the 12^th and the beginnings of the 13^th c. the most important sources are the texts of the metropolitan of Athens Michael Choniates – whose lead seal has been found in Thebes – and his brother Niketas, who records the raid of Roger of Sicily, in 1147 and the sack of Thebes, in 1204, from the lord of the Argolid and Corinth Leo Sgouros.

A little later, the first Latin ruler of Thessaloniki, Boniface of Monferrat deprived Sgouros’ forces of their strength at the Thermopylae and invaded Boeotia undisturbed. The Thebans, actually, according to Niketas Choniates, "welcomed him with pleasure as if they had welcomed some local returning back home". A similar reception, accompanied by musicians and expressions of superlative joy, were reserved by the Thebans in 1209 to emperor Henry. The Lombard co-rulers, however, Albertino and Rolantino Canossa, who possessed Thebes since 1207, were fortified in the Kadmeia and did not acknowledge the suzerainty of the Latin emperor, who laid siege and took it.

5.1. The conquerors de la Roche, Saint-Omer and the Catalans.

Around 1210 the rulers of the French family de la Roche made Thebes capital of the Frankish Duchy of Athens and Thebes.

Between 1230 and 1240 the city came into the hands of the Flemish Saint-Omer family. One of them, Nicolas II, built around 1287 in the Kadmeia a strong castle, part of which forms the well-known "Tower of Santameri", in the area of the Archaeological Museum. His palace, large and lavishly decorated with frescoes depicting the capture of the Holy Lands by the Crusaders, was unfortunately destroyed later, in 1331, when the Catalans, conquered Thebes. Its ruins are traced today, thanks to their size and location in the centre of Thebes, in the exact place of the Mycenaean palace.

5.2. The status of the Church

In the Frankish period, a Latin archbishop was settled in Thebes, as well as monks of the Dominican and the Franciscan orders. It is known that pope Innocent III granted the church of St. Foteini to the Templars. The modern city cathedral, Panagia Lotzia, served as the cathedral of the Franks, where coronations and other ceremonies of the Western rulers took place. A workshop of metalworking is directly connected with this church, unearthed nearby. The most important among the finds, and unique in the entire Greek mainland, was an iron seal for the baking and sealing of the sacramental bread (Host), exhibited today in the Byzantine Museum of Athens.

During the Catalan occupation, the election of the Catholic prelate Simone Atumano of Greek origin as archbishop of Thebes, in 1366, on pope Urban V’s behalf, was particularly important for the pope’s schemes in the East. After the fall of Thebes in 1379 to the Navarrese mercenaries, under John de Urtubia, Atumano abandoned his archbishopric the following year and settled in Rome, where he taught the Greek language.

5.3. Acciajuoli, the last Florentine rulers

In 1380 followed the rule of the Florentine banking house of Acciajuoli, with Nerio I as founder of the Duchy of Attica and Boeotia. After his death, in 1394, his heir Anthony I, the most long-lived Latin ruler in the region, governed wisely and brought stability under Ottoman suzerainty and Venetian surveillance until his death in 1435. During his days commerce once again flourished, by granting privileges to Florentine merchants. The Faenza glazed pottery, found during excavations in Thebes, attests to his stay in the city. Right after Anthony’s death, the bey of Thessaly Turachan took Thebes and put Boeotia under Ottoman control. The last Acciajuoli, Franco, was assassinated, in 1460, at sultan Mehmed II’s orders.

6. Ottoman conquest

6.1. Early period (15th – 16th c.)

The Ottomans stayed as lords of the region ever since until 1829. Boeotia was divided by the Ottoman authority into two administrative districts, kazas; the kaza of Livadeia and the kaza of Thebes, where garrisons were stationed. The income of the two kazas, coming from their agricultural and pastoral economy, were allotted to small tenant holders, as well as to high civic and military officeholders, based in Chalkis, capital of the sanjak of Euripos, after 1470. In Thebes lived around 500 families; however, at the end of the 15^th century the rise was so impressive that the city ranked seventh among the largest ones in the Balkans. Muslims gradually acquired their own religious foundations. It is known from the sources that an agha, Yakub, built a mosque, a bath and a madrasah in Thebes.

During the early Ottoman period there was prosperity due to political security, social stability, low taxation and economic wealth (Pax Ottomanica). The main agricultural product of the Boeotian land, exported through the port of Livadostra, was wheat. Information taken from Ottoman tax cadasters records that in the early 16^th c. seventeen mills were operating in Thebes and towards the end of the century thirty. Apart from wheat, however, there was production of wine, pulses, honey, fibers and pigments, as well as stock farming. The population of Thebes reached, according to a tax cadaster of 1570, the number of 8,000 inhabitants.

6.2. Artistic production

During the 16^th c. Thebes saw the rise of artistic production, too. Thebes is the birthplace of three great painters –Frangos Katellanos and the brothers George and Frangos Kontaris. They represent a movement in painting which was created in mainland Greece against the contemporary Cretan School. Their works were until now recognized in monuments of northwestern Greece as well in the wider region of Thebes, in the monasteries of Galataki in Euboea and Hosios Meletios on Mount Kithairon. Recently, however, frescoes of the Kontaris brothers were traced in the villages of Akraiphnio and Kokkino near Thebes, as well as in Thebes itself.

In addition, in the then cathedral of St. Stephan in Thebes a Nomokanon, a collection of church laws, was composed, in 1563, by the scriber of the Vatican Library Manuel Malaxos.

6.3. Late period (17th – 19th c.)

In the 17^th c. the number of Ottoman monuments grew, listed all by the Ottoman traveler Evliya Çelebi, who, equipped with a sultan firman, visited Thebes in 1668. According to Çelebi, Thebes had 17 mahalas (quarters) for Romioi (the Christian population), six for Muslims and one for Jews. To the north, outside of the city he found the quarries from where sepiolite was extracted, a white soft stone used to create a lüle, the main component of pipes. The processing took place there where the shops were situated, in Epameinondas street. During excavations pieces of sepiolite were unearthed in various stages of the process. These lüle, elaborately sculpted, were exported to the entire Ottoman Empire at low prices.

The Ottoman Empire, however, suffered during the 17^th c. a series of crisis which brought considerable changes. The ownership was removed from the hands of the free agricultural communities, which paid low taxes in central authorities, to landlords, who extracted the surplus of the farmers and kept for themselves a large part of the taxes which used to support the state's finances, resulting to the loss of the centrally-based power. This led to a decline of rural population, and thus of labor force, and to a more general demographic drop. The population of Thebes between 1570 and 1642 was reduced to 4,000 inhabitants. Finally, a devaluation of the currency took place, whereas the economic and commercial power of the western European states kept increasing.

Heavy taxation, suppression and abuse by the Ottomans as well as humiliating terms of life imposed on the tributary Christian populations constituted everyday reality. This regime of slavery urged the Greeks to struggle for their national independence whose apogee was the Greek Revolution of 1821. Thebes, however, paid a heavy price. By the end of the 19^th c., the aforementioned situation and an earthquake turned the city into ruins.