Sacred Band of Thebes
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The Sacred Band of Thebes (ancient Greek: Ιερός Λόχος τών Θηβών; ἱερὸς λόχος hieròs lókhos) was a troop of picked soldiers, numbering 150 homosexual couples, which formed the elite force of the Theban army in late-classical Greece. 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.
It was organized in 378 BC by the Theban commander Gorgidas. His inspiration, according to Plutarch (in his Life of Pelopidas[1]), came from Plato’s Symposium, wherein the character Phaedrus remarks:
And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their loves, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonour, and emulating one another in honour; and when fighting at each other's side, although a mere handful, they would overcome the world. For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms? He would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this. Or who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger? [2]
The Sacred Band originally was formed of picked men in couples, each lover with his beloved, selected from the ranks of the existing Theban citizen-army. They were housed and trained at the city’s expense.[3] During their early engagements, in an attempt to bolster a general morale, they were dispersed by their commander Gorgidas throughout the front ranks of the Theban army.
After Thebes was conquered in the Peloponnesian War in 404 BC, bands of guerilla troops fought with the Spartan troops, becoming fierce warriors. When Theban general Pelopidas recaptured a Theban fortress in 379 BC, he assumed the command of the Sacred Band in which he fought alongside his good friend, General Epaminondas. 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.”[4] They became, in effect, the “crack” force of Greek soldiery [5], 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 in Tegyra, vanquishing an army that was at least three times their number. It was also responsible for the victory of Leuctra in 371 BC, called by Pausanias 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, though possibly also for Philip II's eventual victory.
Defeat came at the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), the decisive contest in which Philip II of Macedon (with his son, Alexander the Great, as he would later be known) extinguished the authority of the Greek city-states. The traditional Greek hoplite infantry were no match for the novel long-speared Macedonian phalanx: the Theban army and its allies broke and fled, but the Sacred Band, though surrounded and overwhelmed, refused to surrender. They held their ground and fell where they stood. Plutarch records that upon encountering their corpses “heaped one upon another”, King Philip, understanding who they were, exclaimed:
"Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly."[6]
Though Plutarch claims that all three hundred died that day, other writers[citation needed] claim that two hundred and fifty-four died and all the rest were wounded. That claim was substantiated upon the excavation of their communal grave at Chaeronea in the early 1800s[citation needed], in which two hundred and fifty-four skeletons were found, arranged in seven rows.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Plutarch, “Pelopidas” 18: “It is probable, therefore, that the Sacred Band was so named, because Plato also speaks of a lover as a friend inspired from Heaven.” Aubrey Stewart & George Long translation.
- ^ Plato, “Symposium”, Jowett translation.
- ^ Plutarch, “Pelopidas” 18.
- ^ Plutarch, “Pelopidas” 18.
- ^ Plutarch, “Pelopidas” 18: “Up to the battle of Chæronea it is said to have continued invincible”
- ^ Plutarch, "Pelopidas" 18, tran Dryden.
