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Key Details
Type
CityMythology
Greek Pantheon
Coordinates
38.319°N, 23.318°E
About This Location
Cadmus's city, tragedy's workshop
Thebes is where Cadmus sows the dragon's teeth, where Oedipus answers the Sphinx, where the Seven die at the gates, and where Dionysus wrecks Pentheus in Euripides' Bacchae. Homer already knows it as seven-gated. Aeschylus and Sophocles make it a machine for inherited pollution. Cult of Dionysus and Apollo Ismenios is local and real; the Labdacid house is theater. The archaeological Kadmeia is a Bronze Age citadel wearing a later tragic costume.
Primary Sources
“I am Dionysus, son of Zeus. I have come to this land of Thebes.”
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