Thebes has lost contact with Egypt in LHIIIB but has gained contacts with "Milatos" (Hittite Milawata) and "Cyprus" (Hittite Alasiya), growing to rival Argolís as a center of Mycenaean power until its palace and walls are destroyed shortly before the Trojan War.

The myth of the "outlandish" and "savage" Seven who threatened the city in Seven Against Thebes, an Oedipus-themed trilogy produced by Aeschylus in 467 BCE, has traditionally seemed to be based on Bronze Age history in the generation before the Trojan War, when in the Iliad's Catalogue of Ships only the remnant Hypothebai subsists on the ruins. (According to tradition, the sons of the Seven destroyed the city.)