"Theban" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... would be an end of popes and cardinals, &c. He told us that many of Mazzini's partisans had taken refuge in Sardinia. We afterwards met with another of them under similar circumstances. Unwilling to wound the feelings of a Colonel who, like the Theban general, was also our Amphitryon, we did not inquire under what circumstances our host had acquired the arts which he practised so well; suspecting, however, that our Colonel's earliest experience was ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... the rocky horror of this hole of anguish; but I have not, and therefore approach it with fear, since it is no jesting enterprise to describe the depths of the universe, nor fit for a tongue that babbles of father and mother.[43] Let such of the Muses assist me as turned the words of Amphion into Theban walls; so shall the speech be not too far different from ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... (1600-1200 B.C.) was the great period of foreign conquest. The Hyksos, Asiatic invaders, had held Egypt for a century or more. The Theban princes who drove them out became kings of Egypt, and followed them into Asia. With an army trained in war by the long struggle with the Hyksos, the Egyptian kings, having tasted the sweetness of the spoils of war, entered on the conquest of western ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner
... Olmo the great general Francis Piccinino as the King of Sparta crushed at Plataea the brilliant chief, Mardonius; the Hungarian sovereigns, John Corvinus Hunniades and his son Matthias occupied the ground that was held by the Theban princes, Pelopidas and Epaminondas; for the two Woiwodes of Transylvania kept their country free from the enslavement of the Turk, as the two Boeotarchs preserved Thebes in independence from the rule of the Lacedaemonians. Never ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... Mr. Baldwyn (the late Schoole-maister at Coulne) did by his learning, stay the sayd Loomeshaws wife, and therefore had a Capon from Redfearne."] I regret that I can give no account of this learned Theban, who appears to have stayed the plague, and who taught at the school at which Archbishop Tillotson was afterwards educated. He well deserved his capon. Had he continued at Colne up to the time ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts
... 1. The Memphite period, which is usually called the "Ancient Empire," from the First to the Tenth dynasty: kings of Memphite origin were rulers over the whole of Egypt during the greater part of this epoch. 2. The Theban period, from the Eleventh to the Twentieth dynasty. It is divided into two parts by the invasion of the Shepherds (Sixteenth dynasty). 3. Saite period, from the Twenty-first to the Thirtieth dynasty, divided again into two parts by the Persian Conquest, the first Saite period, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Tenedian axe," became proverbial to express an absolute refusal. "Business to-morrow!" is another Greek proverb, applied to a person ruined by his own neglect. The fate of an eminent person perpetuated the expression which he casually employed on the occasion. One of the Theban polemarchs, in the midst of a convivial party, received despatches relating to a conspiracy: flushed with wine, although pressed by the courier to open them immediately, he smiled, and in gaiety laying the letter under the pillow of his couch, observed, "Business ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... name of Bacchus; namely, the Indian, surnamed the bearded Bacchus, who conquered India; the son of Jupiter and Ceres, who was represented with horns; and the son of Jupiter and Semele, who was called the Theban Bacchus. ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... but headlong fell In smoking stream upon the Italian flank. Then black Charybdis, from her boundless depth, Threw up a gory sea. In piteous tones Howled the wild dogs; the Vestal fire was snatched From off the altar; and the flame that crowned The Latin festival was split in twain, As on the Theban pyre (22), in ancient days; Earth tottered on its base: the mighty Alps From off their summits shook th' eternal snow (23). In huge upheaval Ocean raised his waves O'er Calpe's rock and Atlas' hoary head. The native gods shed tears, and holy sweat Dropped from the idols; gifts in temples fell: Foul ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... adventure; but the foreign-born citizens served in much the same proportion, and from the same motives, as the native-born. Taken as a whole, it was, even more than the Revolutionary War, a true citizens' fight, and the armies of Grant and Lee were as emphatically citizen armies as Athenian, Theban, or Spartan armies in the great age of Greece, or as a Roman army in the ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... be conveniently wielded on the left arm.[*] These shields are brilliantly painted, and although the Greeks have no heraldic devices, there are all manner of badges and distinguishing marks in vogue. Thus all Theban shields are blazoned with a club; Sicyonian shields are marked with the initial "Sigma" (S), and we note that the Athenian shields are all ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... who in the Theban avenue, Sphinx ranged by Sphinx, goes awestruck, nor may read That ancient awful creed Closed in their granite calm:—so dim the clue, So tangled, tracking through That labyrinthine soul which, day by day Changing, yet kept one long imperious way: Strong ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... Sabretash, a cousin of Ponnonner's from a tomb near Eleithias, in the Lybian mountains, a considerable distance above Thebes on the Nile. The grottoes at this point, although less magnificent than the Theban sepulchres, are of higher interest, on account of affording more numerous illustrations of the private life of the Egyptians. The chamber from which our specimen was taken, was said to be very rich in such illustrations; the walls being completely covered with ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... supplementing those obtained by Cailliaud and Letorzec. They afterwards visited successively the oasis of Falafre, never before explored by a European, that of Dakel, and Khargh, the chief place of the Theban oasis. The documents collected on this journey were sent to France, to the care of M. Jomard, who founded on them his work called "Voyage ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part III. The Great Explorers of the Nineteenth Century • Jules Verne
... small town on the lower Rhine now called Xanten, was "Ad Santos," "peace for the saints." It was thus named on account of the pious warriors of the Theban legion who in the fourth century had boldly died there for their creed ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... who has been the cause of more philosophical discussions than any other man, with the exception of Simmias the Theban (Phaedrus); of Aristophanes, who disguises under comic imagery a serious purpose; of Agathon, who in later life is satirized by Aristophanes in the Thesmophoriazusae, for his effeminate manners and the feeble rhythms ...
— Symposium • Plato
... body, he, the doctor, strangely possessed with the opinion that he himself was inspired by the soul of Pindar; because, making allowance for the difference of languages in which they wrote, there was a surprising affinity between his own works and those of that celebrated Theban; and as a confirmation of this truth, he immediately produced a sample of each, which, though in spirit and versification as different as the Odes of Horace and our present poet-laureat, Peregrine did not scruple to pronounce altogether congenial, notwithstanding the ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... To our Theban houndes, That shooke the aged Forrest with their ecchoes, No more now must we halloa, no more shake Our pointed Iavelyns, whilst the angry Swine Flyes like a parthian quiver from our rages, Strucke with our well-steeld Darts: All valiant ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... slender extent. For (not to derive the same from Hercules) noble descriptions there are hereof in the Grecian funerals of Homer, in the formal obsequies of Patroclus and Achilles; and somewhat elder in the Theban war, and solemn combustion of Meneceus, and Archemorus, contemporary unto Jair the eighth judge of Israel. Confirmable also among the Trojans, from the funeral pyre of Hector, burnt before the gates of Troy: ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... victory to serve its mighty ends. The very implements of our warfare change less than we think. Our bullets and cannonballs have lengthened into bolts like those which whistled out of old arbalests. Our soldiers fight with weapons, such as are pictured on the walls of Theban tombs, wearing a newly invented head-gear as old as the days of ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... to conquer Persia, which was only balked by a diversion wrought by Persian gold in Greece. With Agesilaus Xenophon returned therefore to Greece, and was present at the great shock of the rival infantries, the Theban and the Spartan, at Coronea (394 B.C.). But either his presence in the Spartan army, or his former action against the King of Persia, whom shifting politics were now bringing over to the Athenian side, caused him to be ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... l. 608. Milton here pictures the Theban Bacchus, a type of manly beauty, having his head crowned with a wreath of vine and ivy: both of these plants were sacred to the god. Comp. L'Alleg. 16, "ivy-crowned Bacchus"; Par. Lost, iv. 303; Sams. ...
— Milton's Comus • John Milton
... He took his stand, measured the distance with his eye, then with a run flew up the rising, and at its summit his body bent double, while the heavy quoit flew away. A noble cast! and twice excelled. For a moment every Theban in the stadium was transported. Strangers sitting together fell on one another's necks in sheer joy. But the rapture ended quickly. Lycon flung second. His vast strength could now tell to the uttermost. He was ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... oculist Andrea Vacca by Thorwaldsen. To the right commence frescoes illustrating incidents in the life of St. Ranieri, the patron saint of Pisa, by Andrea da Firenzi, 1377. Those beyond the second door illustrate the temptations and miracles of hermits in the Theban wilderness, by the Lorenzetti. Between Nos. 39 and 40, Hell. Above 38, the Day of Judgment. Then, by Orcagna, the Power of Death,—filling those living in pleasure with horror, but those in sorrow with joy. Now follow (in the eastern ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the first time, in 371 B.C., to the formation of a commune Arcadum, a coalescence of all the fractional groups constituting the Arcadian folk;[1379] but even this union, effected only by the masterly manipulation of the Theban Epaminondas, proved short-lived and incomplete. What was true of the Arcadian villages was true of the city states of Greece. The geography of the land instilled into them the principle of political aloofness, except ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... away to inspect the entrails which had been taken out of the victim, as he happened to be engaged in sacrifice. 10. Cleanor the Arcadian, the oldest of them, then answered, that "they would die before they would deliver up their arms." "For my part," said Proxenus the Theban, "I wonder, Phalinus, whether it is as conqueror that the king asks for our arms, or as gifts in friendship; for if as conqueror, why should he ask for them at all, and not rather come and take them? But if he wishes to get them ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... Egyptians; among these the harp stands pre-eminent. One of the most celebrated representations of an Egyptian harp was drawn from a painting discovered in one of the caverns in the mountains of Egyptian Thebes, by some travellers: it is called the Theban harp, and has thirteen strings; its form is extremely elegant. This harp is supposed to be one of the kind in use before and at the time of Sesostris. Remains of Egyptian harps of a more simple construction, with only four strings, have likewise been discovered. Among the ...
— A Catechism of Familiar Things; Their History, and the Events Which Led to Their Discovery • Benziger Brothers
... the spacious hall of the Egyptian, the same awe which had crept over her brother impressed itself also upon her: there seemed to her as to him something ominous and warning in the still and mournful faces of those dread Theban monsters, whose majestic and passionless features the marble so ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... of Ceylon were called Macrobii, because, owing to the salubrity of the climate, the average duration of life was 150 years. The petty kings of the country acknowledged one paramount sovereign to whom they were subject as satraps; this the Theban was told by others, as he himself not allowed to visit the interior. A thousand other islands lie adjacent to Ceylon, and in a group of these which he calls Maniolae (probably the Attols of the Maldives,) is found the loadstone, which attracts iron, so that a vessel coming within ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... was compelled,—this plea remains—he made concessions against his will, being surrounded by Thessalian horse and Theban infantry. Excellent! So of his intentions they talk; he will mistrust the Thebans; and some carry news about, that he will fortify Elatea. All this he intends and will intend I dare say; but to ...
— The Olynthiacs and the Phillippics of Demosthenes • Demosthenes
... histories, records of conquering kings, dynasties, cut in slabs of sand-stone, or on granite-blocks, I see at Memphis mummy-pits containing mummies embalm'd, swathed in linen cloth, lying there many centuries, I look on the fall'n Theban, the large-ball'd eyes, the side-drooping neck, the hands ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... her seat, amid the palms embowered That shade the Lion-land, Swart AFRICA in dusky aspect towered— The fetters on her hand! Backward she saw, from out her drear eclipse, The mighty Theban years, And the deep anguish of her mournful ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... if he trod some Theban street, And sought compassion on his aged woe, We know not if on Chian sand his feet Left footprints once; but only this we know, How the high ways ...
— Thoughts, Moods and Ideals: Crimes of Leisure • W.D. Lighthall
... it necessary to expound to this learned Theban whether he understood him or no; but, leaving that matter uncertain, he told him he came in quest of certain packages which should have arrived at Kinross, and been placed under the ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... dozen well-armed negro guards, steps forward, and asks the workmen why they are here, making such a noise, and why they have chased and beaten his secretary. He is Prince Paser, who has charge of the Works Department of the Theban Government, and the workmen are masons employed on a large job in the cemetery of Thebes. They all shout at once in answer to the Prince's question; but by-and-by they push forward a spokesman, and he begins, rather sheepishly at first, but warming ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Ancient Egypt • James Baikie
... Theban soothsayer. Dante had learned of him from Ovid., Metam., iii. 320 sqq., as well ...
— The Divine Comedy, Volume 1, Hell [The Inferno] • Dante Alighieri
... Theban war, previously alluded to, took place twenty-seven years before the war of Troy. Sthenelus here speaks of the second, which happened ten years after the first. For an account of these wars see Grecian ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... where a curious conception of the love of Atalanta and Meleager was said to figure on the walls, there was a door on which was a sign, imitated from one that overhung the Theban library of Osymandias—Pharmacy of the Soul. It was there ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... ivory. And there are imitations of animals painted on it, and models worked on it. There are four Victories like dancers, one at each foot of the throne, and two also at the instep of each foot; and at each of the front feet are Theban boys carried off by Sphinxes, and below the Sphinxes, Apollo and Artemis shooting down the children of Niobe. And between the feet of the throne are four divisions formed by straight lines drawn from ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Vol VIII - Italy and Greece, Part Two • Various
... flowers, Queen! They are always in the way. It is a great pity there is such Theban-brother affection between your father and Aubrey. He has an amount of fine feeling hid away under that dark, Jesuitical, non-committal face of his. He has not forgotten your interest in his mother, and when I told him that I thought you had determined to take ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... that brickwork looks good. But what of it? So does a cheap cotton night-shirt—you know the gaudy things those Theban peddlers sell to my sand-hogs down on the river bank. But does it last? Of course it doesn't. Well, I am putting up this pyramid to stay put, and I don't give a damn for its looks. I hear all sorts ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... coloured; that of Cheops, the builder of the great Pyramid, occurs on one. Another of these vessels, or the neck part of one, is covered with cement, and sealed with three cartouches, besides having four others painted on it. This, it is thought, may have contained the precious Theban wine, sealed with the royal signet. There are many other things taken from the tombs which our space forbids us to dwell upon; such as idols and figures, papyri and phylacteries, paint-pots and colours, workman's tools, stone ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 455 - Volume 18, New Series, September 18, 1852 • Various
... friends, when playing on the flute. Besides, one who plays on the harp may speak or sing at the same time; but the use of the flute stops the mouth, intercepts the voice, and prevents all articulation. "Therefore," said he, "let the Theban youths pipe, who do not know how to speak, but we Athenians, as our ancestors have told us, have Minerva for our patroness, and Apollo for our protector, one of whom threw away the flute, and the other stripped the Flute-player of his skin." Thus, between ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... romancing. They complained bitterly that the story, though perfectly authentic, was regarded by the public as a factious lie. [237] So late as the year 1695, Hickes, in a tract in which he endeavoured to defend his darling tale of the Theban legion against the unanswerable argument drawn from the silence of historians, remarked that it might well be doubted whether any historian would make mention of the massacre of Glencoe. There were in England, he said, many thousands of well educated men who had never heard of that massacre, or ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the drifting snow; While her dark locks the bleak winds blow O'er her sleeping infant's cheek! 150 Then let the shrilling trumpet speak, And pierce in louder tones the ear, Till, while it peals, we seem to hear The sounding march, as of the Theban's song;[88] And varied numbers, in their course, With gathering fulness, and collected force, Like the broad cataract, swell and sweep along! Struck by the sounds, what wonder that I laid, As thou, O Warton! didst the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... prayed to him!") and she always wore a scarab ring. She had bought both in an antique-shop just off Washington Street. I thought this rather a far cry from Thebes, myself, but The Author insisted that if a Theban vestal of the time of Sesostris had to reincarnate, she would naturally and inevitably come to life ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... from "Pindar" he found the art of reaching all the obscurity of the Theban bard, however he may fall below his sublimity; he will be allowed, if he has less fire, to have more smoke. He has added nothing to English poetry, yet at least half his book deserves to be read: perhaps he valued most himself that part which the ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... proceed to instances of a fresher date. Harmodius and Aristogiton are in everybody's mouth; the memory of Leonidas the Lacedaemonian, and Epaminondas the Theban, is as fresh as ever. Those philosophers were not acquainted with the many instances in our country—to give a list of whom would take up too much time—who, we see, considered death desirable as ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero |
