The Cadmea is said to have been built by Cadmus, to have been destroyed by the Epigoni, and to have remained in ruins until the Boeotians returning from Arne restored it. In the Homeric Catalogue, Boeotia is inhabited by Boeotians, but according to other accounts, the Boeotians were then still dwelling in Arne, and the country was lying waste—again a sign that the Catalogue does not agree with the other traditions. Thebes then was a great city till Olymp. 111, 2; afterwards it lay in ruins for a period of sixteen years, until it was restored by Cassander from hatred of Alexander and his family. The territory of the city had been given by Alexander to the Boeotians. Cassander carried out the restoration notwithstanding the opposition of the other towns; but it was only an insignificant place, and never gained the ascendancy though it was the seat of the government and the capital of the country. At a later period, however, it was visited by misfortune after misfortune. In the Achaean war, U.C. 608, it was taken by the Romans, and though it was not destroyed, it received a deadly shock. During the Mithridatic war, of which Boeotia was the scene, it was entirely ruined, so that Pausanias saw only a village within the precincts of the ancient Cadmea; the old city contained only a few remains of temples amid heaps of rubbish. It is difficult to enumerate the other towns of Boeotia in any definite order; we shall be guided by the locality and proceed from Plataeae to the left towards Tanagra. Mythology knows many places in ancient Boeotia which are not mentioned in the historical ages; some of them must have perished, and others were united with the territories of larger towns, as for example, Erythrae, Scolos, Hyle, etc.