When Thebes revolted on a rumour of Alexander's death in 335 BCE, he marched south, took the city by assault, and referred its fate to the council of his Greek allies, which voted for destruction. Diodorus records more than 6,000 Thebans killed and more than 30,000 taken and sold into slavery; the city was demolished except for its sanctuaries and, by tradition, the house of the poet Pindar, and its land was distributed to neighbouring Boeotian communities. The decision was framed as a collective Greek judgement on Thebes for medism and treachery, which allowed Alexander to present the annihilation of a major Greek city as lawful punishment rather than Macedonian terror, and contemporaries understood it as a deterrent that secured Greece for the duration of the Asian campaign. Thebes was refounded in 316 BCE by Cassander, with surviving Thebans and their descendants returning. The numbers come from historians writing long after the event and using now-lost sources.
Alexander III of Macedon stormed Thebes after its revolt, and the allied Greek council he chaired voted to raze the city, kill its defenders and sell the surviving population into slavery
No count survives. Reconstruction rests on the ancient narrative sources - Diodorus and Plutarch report about 6,000 killed and 30,000 sold into slavery - together with estimates of the walled area and of Boeotian manpower from the fourth-century campaigns. Modern estimates of the city's population range from about 25,000 to 50,000.
Diodorus gives 'over six thousand' Theban dead in the storming of the city and Plutarch gives 6,000; both are later literary figures with no independent corroboration, and the range is presented as a single reported value rather than a scholarly estimate.
Diodorus, Plutarch and Arrian record the killing of the population during the storming of the city and its subsequent demolition.
Greece