Thebes

Paul Cartledge has done it again - he has shone a light on a crucial epicentre of ancient Greek affairs that so often gets overshadowed by the might of Athens. He does it with assured scholarship, a clear and engaging style, and more than a hint of humour. Thebes is lucky to have Cartledge as its champion!Michael Scott

'The Forgotten City', as Cambridge professor Paul Cartledge calls it in his engaging new history, nonetheless was of enormous political and cultural importance . . . One of the many strengths of Cartledge’s book is the way it illustrates how hearsay, history and myth combined to form the basis of Theban culture . . . Cartledge’s great achievement is to solve the riddle of why Thebes disappeared and put the ancient city back on the map.Daisy Dunn, Literary Review

Cartledge, matching his unrivalled command of the complex, fragmentary and often contradictory sources to his talents as a storyteller, traces the arc of the Theban story as well as anyone is likely to do.Tom Holland, Spectator

Will delight anyone that is interested in ancient Greece and the Classical world more generally. An outstanding work by a scholar of justifiable world renown.Mark Merrony, Antiquus