Bœotia had several important religious centres outside of Thebes. More penetrating than the trumpet of war were the voices that called the Greeks of north and south, and even the barbarians of the east, to the sanctuary of oracular Apollo on the slopes of Mount Ptoön, or to the oracle of Trophonius (a local deity probably to be identified with Zeus) at Lebadeia, which is beautifully situated on the western side of the Copaic plain looking toward Helicon and Parnassus. The Ptoön precinct was already abandoned in Plutarch’s time, and even more deserted than it is to-day when archæologists outnumber the occasional shepherds in search of mountain pasture. But the oracle of Lebadeia retained its sanctity into Roman times and was consulted by both Plutarch and Pausanias. In our day the same river in which the suppliants used to bathe, in preparation for the difficult sacred rites, turns the mills and factories of one of the busiest industrial centres of northern Greece. Religion in Bœotia, as everywhere in Greece, furnished an artistic impulse. Contests of poetry and music were held at almost every centre. Architecture, sculpture, and painting were represented by the most famous masters. A temple renowned for its beauty was that of the Graces at Orchomenus. Within it, on a happy day in the fifth century, a chorus of boys lustily sang an ode written by Pindar for one of their fellows who had won a foot-race in Pisa’s famous valley. The young champion had doubtless illustrated the influence of his native divinities whom the poet celebrates:— “O ye who have your dwelling in the land of goodly steeds that shares the waters of Cephisus, Queens of radiant Orchomenus, O Graces famed in song, ye Guardians of the Minyans in ages gone, give ear! To you I pray! For by your gift come all things sweet and pleasant unto man—his wisdom, beauty, and the sheen of victory. Nay, not the gods themselves can lord it over dance or festival without the Graces pure, for as comptrollers of all heaven’s deeds they have their thrones beside Apollo, Python-slayer with the golden bow, and reverence th’ Olympian Father’s majesty eterne.”