a. and sb. (Also 7 -ean, 8 -æan.) [ad. L. Thēbān-us, f. Thēbæ, Gr. Θῆβαι, Thebes.]
A. adj. 1. Of or belonging to Thebes, capital of ancient Bœotia in Greece.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Anel. & Arc., 85. This theban knyght … Was yonge. Ibid. (c. 1374), Troylus, V. 601. So cruwel … vn-to þe blood Thebane.
1746. Francis, trans. Horace, Art Poetry, 533. Thus rose the Theban Wall; Amphion’s Lyre, And soothing Voice the listening Stones inspire.
1762. Falconer, Shipwreck, III. 227. To curb thy spirit with a Theban chain.
1861. Paley, Æschylus (ed. 2), VII. Agst. Thebes, 240, note. The association of Theban gods … Pallas, Hera, Artemis,… Poseidon, Aphrodite, &c.
2. Of or belonging to Thebes, ancient capital of Upper Egypt; = THEBAIC a.1
Theban drug, opium or laudanum; Theban marble, porphyry = THEBAIC stone; Theban year, the Egyptian year of 3651/4 days.
1645. Evelyn, Diary, 21 Feb. The architrave of the portico [of the Roman Pantheon] sustain’d by 13 pillars of Theban marble.
[1753. Chambers, Cycl. Supp., Thebanus ophites … that species of the … serpentine marble more commonly called ophites niger, the black serpentine.]
1768. C. Shaw, Monody, xvi. Come, Theban drug, the wretch’s only aid, To my torn heart its former peace restore.
1831–3. E. Burton, Eccl. Hist., xxviii. (1845), 596. The martyrdom of the Theban legion … may be said to have taken place about the year 286, when Herculeus was on his march into Gaul.
1839. Civil Eng. & Arch. Jrnl., II. 435/2. Theban Porphyry was black with yellow spots.
B. sb. (also † Thebien). A native or inhabitant of Bœotian Thebes, a Bœotian.
c. 1374. Chaucer, Anel. & Arc., 60. Ibid. (c. 1386), Knt.’s T., 1712. Thise two Thebans vp on either side.
c. 1430. Wars Alex. (Prose), 34. Þe Thebienes also þat were so wyse, and so grete exercyse hadde in armes.
1605. Shaks., Lear, III. iv. 162. Ile talke a word with this same lerned Theban.
1770. Langhorne, Plutarch (1851), I. 320/2. They proclaimed liberty to the Thebans.
1822. T. Mitchell, Aristoph., I. 103. Flute-music … was stigmatised as Theban-like, and consequently unfit for a gentleman.
1880. Swinburne, Study Shaks., 183. To the simpler eyes of less learned Thebans than these—Thebes, by the way, was Dryden’s irreverent name for Cambridge.
