BCEOTIA, was an ancient kingdom of Greece ; bounded on the east by Mount Citheron, which se parated it from Attica ; on the south by the gulf of Corinth ; on the west by Phocis ; and on the north by the strait Euripus, now called the Negropont. This region is now denominated St•amnlippa ; and Thebes, its ancient capital, is known by the moderli appellation Stives. Adorned by the Copais, a lake fourteen miles in length and 'eight in breadth, and intersected by the rivers Ismenes and Asopus, as well as by many lesser streams, the valleys of Bitotia were remarkably fertile ; and the hills, which were most numerous in the district of Aonia, properly so called, afforded excellent pasturage for flocks. Wash ed by the sea on three sides, and indented with many convenient harbours, no country was more adapted for the cultivation of an extensive commerce, and for adding to its natural productions the comforts and luxuries of the various quarters of the globe. The following places, rendered famous either by the poetic or historic muse, were situated in this region. Aulis, a sea-port on the Euripus, celebrated as the place where the Grecian heroes assembled to form that con federacy which terminated in the destruction of Troy. Thespia, a city built upon the river of the same name, and Mount Helicon, which rises behind it ; places consecrated to the muses, and from which that harmonious choir were called Thespiades and Heli: coniades. The cave of Trophonins, who, being con sulted as a soothsayer by the credulous neighbour hood, gave rise to the fable that Jupiter there utter ed his responses, and that the persons who entered the cave to consult the oracle, were never afterwards seen to laugh. The straits of Thermopylae, situa ted at the foot of Mount Oeta, where Leonidas and the 300 Spartans opposed the vast army of Xerxes, and gloriously perished to save their country from Persian slavery.
When we attempt to form an acquaintance with the first inhabitants of this region, we find them so involved in the darkness of antiquity, that'it is hon.
possible to discover their origin, to mark their cha racter, or to describe their exploits. The fabulous muse of Greece ii,Forms us, that Jupiter, in the shape of a bull (probably in a ship, which, having that animal painted on its stern, bore that name,) carried off Europa from the court of Agenor king of Sidon to the island of Crete : that her father commanded Cadmus to go in quest of his sister, and not to return till she was found ; that Cadmus, after a long and unsuccessful search, arriving at Delphos, in obedience to the oracle, followed the footsteps of an ox, which was browsing in the fields ; and that on the spot where that animal lay down, he built a citadel, which he called Cadmea from himself ; laid the foundations of his capital, which he denominated Thebes; and to the country itself he gave the name Bcrotia, from the ox (pow) which had been his guide. The learned,
however, are not agreed concerning the country from which Cadmus and his associates migrated. Some think that they were natives of Thebes in Egypt, and that this new capital derived its name from that place; others that they came from Phenicia ; but if we durst hazard a conjecture, we would suppose that they were Canaanites, of the family of the Cadmo ;sites, (Genesis xv. 19.) or Easterlings, an appella tion which they received from their inhabiting Mount Hermon, the eastern boundary of Canaan, from which place Hermione the wife of Cadmus derived her name; and that they fled from the invasion of Joshua, with whom they were cotemporary. It has, how ever, been maintained, that this region was called Cadmus by Cadmus, and that it received the name of Bceotia long after in this manner : Bccotius, the son of Neptune by Arne the daughter of JEolus king of ./Eolns in Thessaly, succeeding to his grandfather, called that kingdom Bceotia from his own name, and his capital Arne from the name of his mother. This Bcrotia subsisted, as an independent state, upwards of 200 years. At the end of that period, the inhabi tants were forced, by the Thessalians, to migrate to the country which the descendents of Cadmus still possessed ; and obtaining there a settlement, called it &coda from the country which they had left. We, however, imagine that it bore that name from the time of eadmus. As it is supposed that the rax of Europa took place about 151.5 years after the food, the kingdom of Bccotia must have been founded a short time afterwards. From Cadmus to Xanthus, the last of the Boeotian kings, a period of nearly 300 years elapsed. At his death the Bcrotians, weary of kingly government, formed themselves into a repub lic, which continued till they were subdued by the Romans. But as this dynasty is chiefly known in history by the name of THEBES, we refer our readers to that article for an account of its exploits, both in its monarchical and its republican form.