All Topics  
Sacred Band of Thebes

 
Sacred Band of Thebes

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Sacred Band of Thebes
 
 
  Topics Sacred Band of Thebes Topic Home

The Sacred Band of Thebes
Ancient Thebes (Boeotia)

Thebes was a Boeotian city-state , situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, Greece, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain....
 (ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
: Hierós Lókhos
Lokhos

A l?khos or lochos, plural lokhoi , was a Military organization of Classical Greece and of the modern Greek army. The term derived from the ancient Greek for ambush and the men carrying out the ambush, but in practice, its meaning was essentially that of "war-band", a body of armed men....
 tón Thebón) was a troop of picked soldiers, numbering 150 age-structured pairs, which formed the elite force of the Theban army in the 4th century BC. It was organised by the Theban commander Gorgidas
Gorgidas

Gorgidas was a Thebes military leader of the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite corps of paired Theban Theban pederasty.The reasoning behind the Sacred Band was that lovers would fight more fiercely and more cohesively at each other's sides than would strangers with no philadelphic bonds....
 in 378 BC and played a crucial role in the Battle of Leuctra
Battle of Leuctra

The Battle of Leuctra was a battle fought between the Thebes and the History of Spartans and their respective allies amidst the post-Corinthian War conflict....
. It was completely annihilated, however, by Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
 under Philip II of Macedon
Philip II of Macedon

Philip II of Macedon,...
 in the Battle of Chaeronea
Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC)

The Battle of Chaeronea 338 BC, fought near Chaeronea, in Boeotia, was the greatest victory of Philip II of Macedon. There, Philip defeated the combined forces of Classical Athens and Ancient Thebes and initiated Macedonian hegemony in Greece....
 in 338 BC.

lass="link1" onMouseover='showByLink("m1288632",this)' onMouseout='hide("m1288632")'href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Plutarch">Plutarch
Plutarch

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 ? 120 ? commonly known in English as Plutarch ? was a Ancient Rome historian , biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonism....
 records that the Sacred Band consisted of homosexual
Homosexuality

Homosexuality refers to human sexual behavior or same-sex attraction between people of the same sex or to homosexual orientation. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "having sexual and romantic attraction primarily or exclusively to members of one?s own sex"; "it also refers to an individual?s sense of personal and social identi...
 couples, the rationale being that lovers could fight more fiercely and cohesively than strangers with no ardent bonds.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Sacred Band of Thebes'
Start a new discussion about 'Sacred Band of Thebes'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


The Sacred Band of Thebes
Ancient Thebes (Boeotia)

Thebes was a Boeotian city-state , situated to the north of the Cithaeron range, which divides Boeotia from Attica, Greece, and on the southern edge of the Boeotian plain....
 (ancient Greek
Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the historical stage in the development of the Greek language spanning across the Archaic Greece , Classical Greece , and Hellenistic civilization periods of ancient Greece and the classical antiquity....
: Hierós Lókhos
Lokhos

A l?khos or lochos, plural lokhoi , was a Military organization of Classical Greece and of the modern Greek army. The term derived from the ancient Greek for ambush and the men carrying out the ambush, but in practice, its meaning was essentially that of "war-band", a body of armed men....
 tón Thebón) was a troop of picked soldiers, numbering 150 age-structured pairs, which formed the elite force of the Theban army in the 4th century BC. It was organised by the Theban commander Gorgidas
Gorgidas

Gorgidas was a Thebes military leader of the Sacred Band of Thebes, an elite corps of paired Theban Theban pederasty.The reasoning behind the Sacred Band was that lovers would fight more fiercely and more cohesively at each other's sides than would strangers with no philadelphic bonds....
 in 378 BC and played a crucial role in the Battle of Leuctra
Battle of Leuctra

The Battle of Leuctra was a battle fought between the Thebes and the History of Spartans and their respective allies amidst the post-Corinthian War conflict....
. It was completely annihilated, however, by Alexander the Great
Alexander the Great

Alexander the Great , also known as Alexander III of Macedon was an ancient Greeks King of Macedon . He was one of the most successful military commanders of all time and is presumed undefeated in battle....
 under Philip II of Macedon
Philip II of Macedon

Philip II of Macedon,...
 in the Battle of Chaeronea
Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC)

The Battle of Chaeronea 338 BC, fought near Chaeronea, in Boeotia, was the greatest victory of Philip II of Macedon. There, Philip defeated the combined forces of Classical Athens and Ancient Thebes and initiated Macedonian hegemony in Greece....
 in 338 BC.

Composition

Plutarch
Plutarch

Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus , c. AD 46 ? 120 ? commonly known in English as Plutarch ? was a Ancient Rome historian , biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonism....
 records that the Sacred Band consisted of homosexual
Homosexuality

Homosexuality refers to human sexual behavior or same-sex attraction between people of the same sex or to homosexual orientation. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "having sexual and romantic attraction primarily or exclusively to members of one?s own sex"; "it also refers to an individual?s sense of personal and social identi...
 couples, the rationale being that lovers could fight more fiercely and cohesively than strangers with no ardent bonds. According to Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas
Pelopidas

Pelopidas was a Thebes, Greece statesman and general.He was a member of a distinguished family, and possessed great wealth which he expended on his friends, while content to lead the life of an athlete....
), the inspiration for the Band's formation came from Plato
Plato

Plato , was a Classical Greece Greeks philosopher, mathematician, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Platonic Academy in Ancient Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the western world....
's Symposium
Symposium (Plato)

The Symposium is a philosophical dialogue written by Plato sometime after 385 BC. It is a discussion on the nature of love, taking the form of a group of speeches, both satirical and serious, given by a group of men at a symposium or a wine drinking gathering at the house of the Tragedy#Greek tragedy Agathon at Athens....
, wherein the character Phaedrus remarks,

The Sacred Band originally was formed of picked men in couples, each lover and beloved selected from the ranks of the existing Theban citizen-army. The pairs consisted of the older "heniochoi", or charioteers, and the younger "paraibatai", or companions, who were all housed and trained at the city's expense. During their early engagements, in an attempt to bolster general morale, they were dispersed by Gorgidas throughout the front ranks of the Theban army.

Ascent

After the Theban general Pelopidas recaptured the acropolis of Thebes in 379 BC, he assumed command of the Sacred Band, in which he fought alongside his good friend Epaminondas
Epaminondas

Epaminondas was a Thebes, Greece general and statesman of the 4th century BC who transformed the Ancient Greece polis of Thebes, leading it out of Spartan subjugation into a preeminent position in Greek politics....
. It was Pelopidas who formed these couples into a distinct unit: he "never separated or scattered them, but would stand [them with himself in] the brunt of battle, using them as one body." They became, in effect, the "crack" force of Greek soldiery, and the forty years of their known existence (378–338 BC) marked the pre-eminence of Thebes as a military and political power in late-classical Greece.

The Sacred Band under Pelopidas fought the Spartans at Tegyra
Battle of Tegyra

The Battle of Tegyra was an Ancient Greece battle between Thebes, Greece and Spartan hoplite forces. In the battle, a Theban army under Pelopidas was challenged by a substantially larger Spartan force while retreating from an abortive attack on Orchomenus , but successfully attacked and routed the Spartans....
 in 375 BC, vanquishing an army that was at least three times its size. It was also responsible for the victory at Leuctra in 371 BC, called by Pausanias
Pausanias (geographer)

Pausanias was a Roman Greece traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius....
 the most decisive battle ever fought by Greeks against Greeks. Leuctra established Theban independence from Spartan rule and laid the groundwork for the expansion of Theban power, but possibly also for Philip II's eventual victory.

Destruction

Defeat came at the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), the decisive contest in which Philip II of Macedon, with his son Alexander, extinguished the Theban hegemony. Alexander became the first to break through the Band's line, which had thitherto been thought invincible. The traditional hoplite
Hoplite

The word hoplite derives from hoplon , meaning an item of armour or equipment, thus 'hoplite' may approximate to 'armoured man'. Hoplites were the citizen-soldiers of the Ancient Greece City-states....
 infantry was no match for the novel long-speared Macedonian phalanx
Macedonian phalanxes

The Macedonian phalanx is an infantry formation developed by Philip II of Macedon and used by his son Alexander the Great to conquer the Persian Empire and other armies....
: the Theban army and its allies broke and fled, but the Sacred Band, although surrounded and overwhelmed, refused to surrender. It held its ground and fell where it stood. Plutarch records that, on encountering the corpses "heaped one upon another", understanding who they were, exclaimed,

Legacy

In about 300 BC, the town of Thebes erected a giant stone lion on a pedestal at the burial site of the Sacred Band. This was restored in the 20th Century and still stands today. Although Plutarch claims that all three hundred of the Band's warriors died that day, excavation of the burial site at the Lion Monument in 1890 turned up only 254 skeletons, arranged in seven rows.

See also

  • Homosexuality in ancient Greece
    Homosexuality in ancient Greece

    In classical antiquity, writers such as Herodotus, Plato, Xenophon, Athenaeus and many others explored aspects of same-sex love in ancient Greece....
  • Sacred Band of Carthage
    Sacred Band of Carthage

    The Sacred Band of Carthage is the name used by Greek historians to refer to an infantry unit of Carthaginian foot citizens that served in Carthaginian armies during the fourth century BC....
  • Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece
    Homosexuality in the militaries of ancient Greece

    When the topic of homosexuality in the militaries of Ancient Greece is discussed, the Sacred Band of Thebes is usually considered as the prime example of how the Ancient Greece army use homoerotic or homosexual relationships between soldiers in a troop to boost the fighting spirit of their military....