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FFRXF7 OEDIPUS AND THE SPHINX. /nThe young Oedipus ponders the riddle of the Sphinx. Red-figured Greek pottery painting.
Thebes: city of myths
Sparta is famous for its warrior tradition, Athens for its intellectual and artistic achievement. But what of Thebes? As ancient historian Paul Cartledge explains, Thebes too had a most distinctive image.
‘Ancient Greece’ conjures up many different things to many different readers. Typically – and to put it rather crudely – Sparta does war, Athens does art (very broadly interpreted), and Alexander the Great of Macedon does empire.
Oedipus and the Sphinx, attributed to the Oedipus Painter, c.470 BC. Attic red-figure kylix, found at Vulci, Italy. IMAGE: Alamy.
Of course, it is a lot more complex than that. Athens does much more than (visual, theatrical, rhetorical) art: for example, democracy, philosophy, and indeed high culture generally made Athens the key city for the Romans wishing to inherit and claim descent from ‘Hellenic’ culture, via Alexandria’s Museum and Library.
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