Alexander razed Thebes and sold its people into slavery, but spared the house and descendants of the poet Pindar

Pindar was a lyric poet of Thebes. In 335 BC Thebes revolted against Alexander. Alexander stormed the city. Plutarch says more than 6,000 Thebans were killed and more than 30,000 sold as slaves. Arrian records that Alexander's allies decided to garrison the citadel, raze the city to the ground, divide its land among themselves except for the sacred land, and enslave the women, the children and the surviving men. Priests and priestesses, guest-friends of Philip and Alexander, and men who had represented Macedon were exempt. Arrian adds that "they say" Alexander also spared the house of the poet Pindar and his descendants, out of respect for him. Plutarch says that before the sale the priests, the Macedonians' guest-friends, Pindar's descendants and the men who had voted against the revolt were separated out from the captives. Everyone else was sold. The city's land went to the allies, and the family of a poet who had died long before kept its freedom and its house. The Suda repeats the account from Arrian. Arrian reports it as hearsay. Nothing is known of Pindar's later descendants.