DIRCE AT THEBES

Extract

In Boeotian Thebes, the simplest thirst for topographical detail will turn up a reference to Dirce. Whether depicted as a nymph, a spring, a river, or simply as flowing water, the name represents an integral, perhaps indispensable, part of the Theban landscape. But of course it is more than that. A narrative surrounds this watery place, telling of Theban kings and queens, of founding twins, and of odd and cruel tortures and torments. It is my goal in this article to understand these varying traditions surrounding Dirce by means of an examination of the interplay between mythic narratives and Theban topography. Narratives of Dirce grow and develop in relation to the physical landscape of the city, but this relationship is seldom reducible to a one-to-one correlation of story and place. The early Greek tradition has much to say about Dirce, some of it contradictory. But superficial contradiction is the norm in this realm, and some sense can be made of what we have with careful attention to the changing contexts surrounding appearances of Dirce as they are expressed and understood in early Greek literature, and to the changing ways the city of Thebes is described in the Greek mythic tradition.