The evening saw us entering into Thebes—the town which, beyond all others, retains the smallest vestiges of antiquity. Even the site of the Cadmea is not easily distinguishable. Two or three hillocks in and about the town are all equally insignificant, and all equally suitable, one should think, for a fortress. The discovery of the old foundations of the walls has, however, determined the matter, and settled the site to be that of the highest part of the present town. Its strength, which was celebrated, must have been due nearly altogether to artificial fortification, for though the old city was in a deeper valley to the north-west, yet from the other side there can never have been any ascent steep enough to be a natural rampart. The old city was, no doubt, always more renowned for eating and drinking than for art or architecture,(97) and its momentary supremacy under Epaminondas was too busy and too short a season to be employed in such pursuits. But, besides all this, and besides all the ruin of Alexander’s fury, the place has been visited several times with the most destructive earthquakes, from the last of which (in 1852) it had not recovered when I first saw it. There were still through the streets houses torn open, and walls shaken down; there were gaps made by ruins, and half-restored shops. The antiquities of Thebes consist of a few inscribed slabs and fragments which are (as usual) collected in a dark outhouse, where it is not easy to make them out. I was not at the trouble of reading these inscriptions, for in this department the antiquarians of the University of Athens are really very zealous and competent, and I doubt whether any inscription now discovered fails to come into the Greek papers within a few months. From these they of course pass into the _Corpus Inscriptionum Græcarum_, a collection daily increasing, and periodically reedited. I may observe that, not only for manners and customs, but even for history, these undeniable and seldom suspicious sources are rapidly becoming our surest and even fullest authority. In the opinion of the inhabitants, by far the most important thing about the town is the tomb of their Evangelist S. Luke, which is situated in a chapel close by. The stone is polished and worn with the feet and lips of pilgrims, and all such homes of long devotion are in themselves interesting; but the visitor may well wonder that the Evangelist should have his tomb established in a place so absolutely decayed and depopulated as was the region of Thebes, even in his day. The tombs of the early preachers and missionaries are more likely to be in the thickest of thoroughfares, amid the noise and strife of men. The Evangelist was confused with a later local saint of the same name.(98)