Thisbe (Boeotia)

Thisbe was an ancient town in Boeotia, Greece, near Mount Helicon between Thespiae and Coroneia and a short distance from the sea, remembered in antiquity for its abundance of wild pigeons; its remains lie near the village once called Kakosi that was renamed Thisbe in 1915. Homer mentions the town in the Catalogue of Ships in the Iliad, and Xenophon records the Spartan general Cleombrotus I marching through its territory in 371 BC on the way to the Battle of Leuctra. The site had a temple to Heracles and a causeway system that let residents alternate farming between different parts of the surrounding plain, and Roman poets including Ovid and Statius later referred to its pigeons.