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‘Seven-gated Thebes’: Epic Tradition, Topography, and Evidence of Material Culture
The paper by Andrej Mozhajsky (Moscow) and Victoria Pichugina (Moscow) studies the topography of the ancient city of Thebes. Numerous stories about the mythological history of ancient Thebes were assembled in poetry and prose, e.g. about the bloody struggle for power among king Oedipus’ sons and the siege of the city that accompanied the struggle gained much popularity in Classical literature (Aeschylus, Euripides, Pausanias, Pseudo-Apollodorus, Statius, Hyginus, and others). Thanks to Aeschylus, who had turned to the Mycenaean topography and stated the presence of the city’s seven gates, Thebes appeared as a city with a specific spatial organization. Even though ancient authors list the names of these gates and attempt to locate them, the issue of whether the city had exactly seven gates still causes controversy among researchers. The epithet “7- gated” for Thebes, known since the creation of Homer’s Odyssey (11.260–5), presumably reflects the Kadmeia’s real fortifications, which remains date back to Mycenaean times. Unlike some other scholars, Mozhajsky and Pichugina argue that the Mycenaean Thebes indeed possessed seven gates and set out to prove this through the evidence of archaeological research, as well as the arguments considering the topography and the functions of the fortifications. Mozhajsky and Pichugina also find confirmation in some later literary sources that directly connect the fortification of the Kadmeia with the monuments of the Mycenaean period. For instance, Aeschylus (Sept. 526–528) associates the Kadmeia’s Northern Gate with the Amphion Hill, which, in their opinion, reflects the development of urban space in the Archaic period and the further transfer of ancient cultural meanings linked to topography into the classical period.
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