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106 Boeotia about the Peneus.199 So many are the blessings which the arms of the Turks have wrested from Christians, although I would attach greater blame to our own laziness. 48. In Thessaly, they say there was a king called Graecus, after whom Greece was named; also, that Helenus reigned here, from whom Helen acquired her name. Homer referred to the Thessalians with three names: Myrmidons, Hellenes, and Achaeans.200 Here are the narrows of Thermopylae, renowned for the slaughter of the Persians.201 Although they once withstood the attack of Xerxes, they failed completely to obstruct the passage of the Turkish army. 10 BOEOTIA 49. NEXT after Thessaly comes Boeotia, which stretches from east to west, touching both the Euboean Sea and the Gulf of Crisa. It is mentioned by almost all historians owing to the fame of Thebes. Here is the birthplace of the Muses in the grove of Helicon, here the glades of Cithaeron, the river Ismenus and the springs of Dirce, Arethusa, and Aganippe. This city, which was once the homeland of Father Liber and Hercules and which produced the brave Epaminondas202 —a city not inferior to Athens in fame—is in our time the insignificant stronghold of Thebes, which in recent years has been occupied by the Turks together with the rest of Boeotia.203 199. Pliny, Natural History, 4.8.30–31; cf. Homer, Iliad, 2.751–55; Strabo, Geography, 9.5.20. 200. Homer, Iliad, 2.684. 201. Battle between the Persians and Greek allies, led by Spartan King Leonidas, in 480 BCE. 202. Theban leader and general (c. 410–362 BCE) who broke Spartan domination over Boeotia. 203. Thebes became a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire in 1446; see Babinger, Mehmed the Conqueror, 50. ...

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