The Thespian had been to Thebes only once before, in the year of the twin musters before the battles at Nemea and Koroneia. But that was more than twenty seasons prior. Mêlon now was bewildered by the unfamiliar sights in the capital of the Boiotians. The Thebans, with the sales from the spoils of Leuktra, were rebuilding the great temple of Apollo Ismenios. Twelve new columns rose along the temple’s long side. Forty men, with scaffolds and block and tackle, levered a huge marble capital on the nearest, a scroll of the Ionian type. This was the great gated city of Kadmos and Oidipous and Kreon, now to be remade as the democratic capital of a new Theban hegemony of equal poleis. Mêlon stared like a country ephebe at the seven arches and hills, as the travelers went over the bridge and through the Onkan Gate and on past the walls.They made their way to a hut that Alkidamas owned near the Borean Gate. There they spread out three cots. Melissos led Xiphos down to the public stalls on the nearby hill of Ampheion, then went quickly back to join the two in this hovel near the tomb of Herakles.
