Editing Boeotia (section)

==Origins==
The origin of the name "Boeotians" may lie in the mountain [[Boeon]] in [[Epirus]].<ref>{{cite book |author=Sylvain Auroux |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ygDHVYyEXOMC&q=Greek+Epirus+Boeotians&pg=PA439 |title=History of the language sciences: an international handbook on the evolution |year=2000 | publisher=Walter de Gruyter |isbn=9783110111033}}</ref>

The earliest inhabitants of Boeotia, associated with the city of [[Orchomenus (Boeotia)|Orchomenus]], were called [[Minyans]]. [[Pausanias (geographer)|Pausanias]] mentions that Minyans established the maritime [[Ionia]]n city of [[Teos]],<ref>Pausanias.''Description of Greece'' 7.3.6</ref> and occupied the islands of [[Lemnos]] and [[Thera]]. The [[Argonauts]] were sometimes referred to as Minyans. Also, according to legend the citizens of Thebes paid an annual tribute to their king [[Erginus]].<ref>''[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheke]]'' 2.4.11 records the origin of the Theban tribute as recompense for the mortal wounding of [[Clymenus]], king of the Minyans, with a cast of a stone by a charioteer of [[Menoeceus]] in the precinct of Poseidon at Onchestus; the myth is also reported by [[Diodorus Siculus]], 4.10.3.</ref> The Minyans may have been [[Proto-Greek language|proto-Greek]] speakers. Although most scholars today agree that the [[Myceneans]] descended from the Minyans of the ''[[Middle Helladic period]]'', they believe that the progenitors and founders of [[Minyans|Minyan culture]] were an [[indigenous people]].<ref>{{harvnb|Cambitoglou|Descœudres|1990|p=7 under "Excavations in the Region of Pylos" by George S. Korrés}}.</ref>
The early wealth and power of Boeotia is shown by the reputation and visible Mycenean remains of several of its cities, especially Orchomenus and [[Thebes, Greece|Thebes]].

Some toponyms and the common [[Aeolic]] dialect indicate that the Boeotians were related to the [[Thessalian]]s. Traditionally, the Boeotians are said to have originally occupied [[Ancient Thessaly|Thessaly]], the largest fertile plain in Greece, and to have been dispossessed by the north-western Thessalians two generations after the [[Fall of Troy]] (1200 BC). They moved south and settled in another rich plain, while others filtered across the [[Aegean Sea|Aegean]] and settled on [[Lesbos]] and in [[Aeolis]] in [[Asia Minor]]. Others are said to have stayed in Thessaly, withdrawing into the hill country and becoming the ''perioikoi'' ("dwellers around").<ref>L. H .Jeffery (1976). ''Archaic Greece. The Greek city-states 700–500 BC''. Ernest Benn Ltd. London & Tonbridge. pp. 71, 77 {{ISBN|0-510-03271-0}}</ref> Boeotia was an early member of the oldest [[Amphictyonic League]] (''Anthelian''), a religious confederacy of related tribes, despite its distance from the League's original home in [[Anthela (Thessaly)|Anthela]].<ref>The Parian marble. Entry No 5: "When [[Amphictyon]] son of [[Hellen]] became king of [[Thermopylae]] brought together those living round the temple and named them ''Amphictyones''; Entry No 6: Graeces-Hellenes [http://www.ashmolean.org/ash/faqs/q004/q004008.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170823171940/http://www.ashmolean.org/ash/faqs/q004/q004008.html|date=23 August 2017}}</ref><ref>L. H . Jeffery (1976). ''Archaic Greece. The Greek city states c. 700-500 B.C''. Ernest Benn Ltd. London & Tonbridge pp. 72, 73 {{ISBN|0-510-03271-0}}</ref>

Although they included great men such as [[Pindar]], [[Hesiod]], [[Epaminondas]], [[Pelopidas]], and [[Plutarch]], the Boeotian people were portrayed as proverbially dull by the Athenians (cf. ''Boeotian ears'' incapable of appreciating music or poetry and ''Hog-Boeotians'', [[Cratinus]].310).<ref>''The Merriam-Webster New Book of Word Histories'', Merriam-Webster, 1 January 1991, p.360</ref><ref>{{cite journal
 | last = Wood | first = Donald
 | date = April 1959
 | doi = 10.1177/030639685900100207
 | issue = 2
 | journal = Race
 | pages = 65–71
 | publisher = SAGE Publications
 | title = Some Greek Stereotypes of other Peoples
 | volume = 1}}</ref>