Orchomenus
An ancient Boeotian city that was one of the wealthiest in Bronze Age Greece, rivalling Thebes and associated with the Minyans.
The Story of Orchomenus
Orchomenus was one of the great Mycenaean centres, its wealth so prodigious that Homer names it alongside Egyptian Thebes as a byword for riches. The city was the seat of the legendary Minyans, a pre-Hellenic people whose treasury (the Treasury of Minyas) was considered by Pausanias as remarkable as the pyramids of Egypt. Heracles was connected to Orchomenus through one of his earliest feats: the city had imposed a tribute on Thebes, and the young Heracles defeated the Orchomenian forces and reversed the tribute, establishing Theban independence. The Graces (Charites) had an ancient cult at Orchomenus, worshipped with a festival called the Charitesia that included musical competitions. The city's decline began when Thebes drained Lake Copais, which had sustained Orchomenus's agricultural wealth, and the rivalry between the two Boeotian cities was a persistent theme of the region's history.
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