orical times the leading city of Boeotia was
Thebes, whose central position and military strength made it a suitable
capital. It was the constant ambition of the Thebans to absorb the other
townships into a single state, just as Athens had annexed the Attic
communities. But the outlying cities successfully resisted this policy,
and only allowed the formation of a loose federation which in early
times seems to have possessed a merely religious character. While the
Boeotians, unlike the Arcadians, generally acted as a united whole
against foreign enemies, the constant struggle between the forces of
centralization and disruption perhaps went further than any other cause
to check their development into a really powerful nation. Boeotia hardly
figures in history before the late 6th century. Previous to this its
people is chiefly known as the producer of a type of geometric pottery
similar to the Dipylon ware of Athens. About 519 the resistance of
Plataea to the federating policy of Thebes led to the interference of
Athens on behalf of the former; on this occasion, and again in 507, the
Athenians defeated the Boeotian levy. During the Persian invasion of
480, while some of the cities fought whole-heartedly in the ranks of the
patriots, Thebes assisted the invaders. For a time the presidency of the
Boeotian League was taken away from Thebes, but in 457 the Spartans
reinstated that city as a bulwark against Athenian aggression. Athens
retaliated by a sudden advance upon Boeotia, and after the victory of
Oenophyta brought under its power the whole country excepting the
capital. For ten years the land remained under Athenian control, which
was exercised through the newly installed democracies; but in 447 the
oligarchic majority raised an insurrection, and after a victory at
Coronea regained their freedom and restored the old constitutions. In
the Peloponnesian War the Boeotians, embittered by the early conflicts
round Plataea, fought zealously against Athens. Though slightly
estranged from Sparta after the peace of Nicias, they never abated their
enmity against their neighbours. They rendered good service at Syracuse
and Arginusae; but their greatest achievement was the decisive victory
at Delium over the flower of the Athenian army (424), in which both
their heavy infantry and their cavalry displayed unusual efficiency.

About this time the Boeotian League comprised eleven groups of sovereign
cities and associated townships, each