d the league, which, however,
was allowed to revive under Augustus, and merged with the other central
Greek federations in the Achaean synod. The death-blow to the country's
prosperity was given by the devastations during the first Mithradatic
War.

Save for a short period of prosperity under the Frankish rulers of
Athens (1205-1310), who repaired the _katavothra_ and fostered
agriculture, Boeotia long continued in a state of decay, aggravated by
occasional barbarian incursions. The first step towards the country's
recovery was not until 1895, when the outlets of Copais were again put
into working order. Since then the northern plain has been largely
reclaimed for agriculture, and the natural riches of the whole land are
likely to develop under the influence of the railway to Athens. Boeotia
is at present a Nomos with Livadia (the old Turkish capital) for its
centre; the other surviving townships are quite unimportant. The
population (65,816 in 1907) is largely Albanian.

AUTHORITIES.--Thuc. iv. 76-101; Xenophon, _Hellenica_, iii.-vii.;
Strabo, pp. 400-412; Pausanias ix.; Theopompus (or Cratippus) in the
_Oxyrhynchus Papyri_, vol. v. (London, 1908), No. 842, col. 12; W.M.
Leake, _Travels in Northern Greece_, chs. xi.-xix. (London, 1835); H.F.
Tozer, _Geography of Greece_ (London, 1873), pp. 233-238; W. Rhys
Roberts, _The Ancient Boeotians_ (Cambridge, 1895); E.A. Freeman.
_Federal Government_ (ed. 1893, London), ch. iv. S 2; B.V. Head,
_Historia Numorum_, pp. 291 sqq. (Oxford, 1887); W. Larfeld, _Sylloge
Inscriptionum Boeoticarum_ (Berlin, 1883). (See also THEBES.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Thucydides (v. 38), in speaking of the "four councils of the
Boeotians," is referring to the plenary bodies in the various states.

BOER, the Dutch form of the Eng. "boor," in its original signification
of husbandman (Ger. _Bauer_), a name given to the Dutch farmers of South
Africa, and especially to the Dutch population of the Transvaal and
Orange River States. (See SOUTH AFRICA and TRANSVAAL.)

BOERHAAVE, HERMANN (1668-1738), Dutch physician and man of science, was
born at Voorhout near Leiden on the 31st of December 1668. Entering the
university of Leiden he took his degree in philosophy in 1689, with a
dissertation _De distinctione mentis a corpore_, in which he attacked
the doctrines of Epicurus, Hobbes and Spinoza. He then turned to the
study of medicine, in which he graduated in 1693 at Harderwyck in
Guelderla