Description of Greece

​At that time, the Thebans, having been driven from their homes by Alexander and having fled to Athens, were later restored by Cassander, the son of Antipater. In the rebuilding of Thebes, the Athenians showed themselves the most zealous, but the Messenians also took part in the assistance, as did those of the Arcadians who held Megalopolis.

​It seems to me that Cassander rebuilt Thebes chiefly out of hatred for Alexander; for he also went so far as to destroy the entire house of Alexander, delivering Olympias to be stoned to death by the Macedonians who were exasperated against her, and killing the children of Alexander, both Heracles, his son by Barsine, and Alexander, his son by Roxane, by means of poison. Nevertheless, he himself did not end his life happily either; for he was filled with dropsy, and from this, worms bred in him while he was still alive.

​Of his children, Philip, the eldest, not long after taking over the rule, was carried off by a wasting disease; but Antipater, the next after him, put to death his mother Thessalonice, who was the daughter of Philip the son of Amyntas and of Nicasipolis, killing her on the charge that she showed greater affection for Alexander. Now Alexander was the youngest of the children of Cassander; having brought in Demetrius the son of Antigonus, he deposed and punished his brother Antipater through him, but was revealed to have found for himself a murderer and not an ally.

​Cassander, then, was destined to pay the penalty to whichever of the gods it might be; but for the Thebans, though their whole ancient circuit wall was rebuilt under Cassander, they were destined after all to taste great evils later. For when Mithridates entered into the war against the Romans, the Thebans joined him, for no other reason, in my opinion, than their friendship for the Athenian people. But when Sulla invaded Boeotia, fear seized the Thebans, and they immediately changed their minds and turned back again to the friendship of the Romans.

​Sulla, however, still directed his anger against them, and devised other measures for the ruin of the Thebans, and cut off half of their territory on the following pretext. When he was beginning the war against Mithridates, he was in lack of money; he therefore collected the votive offerings from Olympia, those from Epidaurus, and those from Delphi, as many as the Phocians had left behind.

​These he distributed to his army, and in return for the money, he gave back to the gods half of the territory of the Thebans. This confiscated land the Thebans later recovered by the favor of the Romans, but in other respects they were brought from that time to the lowest state of weakness; and in my time, the whole lower city was deserted for them except for the temples, and they inhabit the acropolis, calling it Thebes and not Cadmeia.