Emeritus Professor Paul Cartledge will present an online lecture entitled The Forgotten City of Thebes, on Thursday 8th April 2021, 7.00pm, as a part of the Greek History and Culture Seminars offered by the Greek Community of Melbourne.

 Thebes - the one in ancient Greece (not to be confused with its Egyptian homonym) - was a major city, both historically and mythologically. In this talk the aim is to treat both the city of Myth (Oedipus et al.) and the city of History (Epameinondas).

Thebes has suffered historiographically from being squeezed between the histories of Athens, Sparta and Alexander the Great. It suffered in another way at the hands of the latter: he had it physically destroyed, near-obliterated. For those reasons it's been too often 'Forgotten'.

Professor Paul Cartledge is the AG Leventis Senior Research Fellow of Clare College, and formerly the inaugural AG Leventis Professor of Greek Culture in the University of Cambridge. He is the author, co-author, editor or co-editor of some 30 books, most recently Democracy: A Life (Oxford University Press, 2018) and Thebes: the forgotten city of ancient Greece (Picador & Abrams, 2020). Cartledge's field of study is Athens and Sparta in the Classical Age, he has been described as a Laconophile. He was chief historical consultant for the BBC TV series The Greeks and the Channel 4 series The Spartans, presented by Bettany Hughes. Professor Cartledge is also a holder of the Gold Cross of the Order of Honour of Greece and an Honorary Citizen of modern Sparta. Most recently he has been awarded the Commander of the Order of Honour (Ταξιάρχης τῆς Τιμῆς), for his 'contribution to enhancing Greece's stature abroad'.