Brewer's: Thebes

(1 syl.), called The Hundred-Gated, was not Thebes of Boeotia, but of Thebaïs of Egypt, which extended over twenty-three miles of land. Homer says out of each gate the Thebans could send forth 200 war—chariots. (Egyptian, Taape or Taouab, city of the sun.)

The world's great empress on the Egyptian plain, That spreads her conquests o'er a thousand states, And pours her heroes through a hundred gates, Two hundred horsemen and two hundred cars From each wide portal issuing to the wars.

Pope: Iliad, 1.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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