The use of a ship as a metaphor for the city of Thebes, which lies at some remove from the sea, seems out of place. And though Thebes is known for having seven gates that play a notable role in the legend pertaining to the sons of Oidipous and Iokaste, neither ships nor fortifications play any role in this story. Ships and towers do, however, have everything to do with wartime Athens after 431 BCE, for these are the two great defensive measures taken by the Athenians to ward off invasion by troops of the Spartan alliance. According to Thucydides, Pericles encouraged Athens to abandon her farmsteads to the enemy while protecting both city and fleet, and in preparation for the war new walls were erected connecting Athens to its port at Piraeus. Mention of tower and ship thus superimpose the outlines of Athens upon Thebes, while the anticipation of desolation joins the two cities. To Athenians the thought of a city “bereft of men” would have been pointedly relevant, not as a consequence of military defeat, but rather of the devastating plague that struck the city after 430. For while Athenian medical science could see no causal connection between the unsanitary conditions that arose when thousands of people from the countryside crowded into the walled city for refuge from the military operations mounted by Sparta and its allies, it was apparent to all that the plague broke out immediately following the Peloponnesians’ invasion and so seemed connected with that event. So, while the play links Athens and Thebes through plague, ship, and walls, Athenian chronology links plague with war, with the result that the audience would regard the Thebans’ attempts to cope with their plague through the lens of Athens’ commitment to the war with Sparta. [Gt-a] [Mw]