"Boiotia was - next to Athens and Sparta - one of the most important regions of ancient Greece. Albert Schachter, a leading expert on the region, has for many decades pioneered and fostered the exploration of it and its people through his research. His seminal publications have covered all aspects of its history, institutions, cults, and literature from late Mycenaean times to the Roman Empire, revealing a mastery of the epigraphic evidence, archaeological data, and the literary tradition. This volume conveniently brings together twenty-three papers (two previously unpublished, others revised and updated) which display a compelling intellectual coherence and a narrative style refreshingly immune to jargon. All major topics of Boiotian history from early Greece to Roman times are touched upon, and the book can be read as a history of Boiotia, in pieces"-- Provided by publisher. "'The present Boiotoi' - wrote Thucydides - 'in the sixtieth year after the capture of Ilion, were evicted from Arne by the Thessalians, and settled in what is now called Boiotia, but was formerly named the Kadmeian land: there was, besides, a group of them who were in this land earlier, some of whom had gone to war against Ilion'. Thucydides's statement has had an inordinate effect on the way historians have looked at Boiotia and the Boiotians. Consciously or not it is accepted that Boiotian history began only with the arrival of the Boiotoi. This is said to have happened around 1150 or 1100 BC. The Bronze Age population is conveniently disposed of by the assumption - often unspoken - that they were driven out, or killed, or caused to waste away and disappear from the face of the earth"-- Provided by publisher.