Sacred Band of Thebes

The Sacred Band of Thebes (Ancient Greek: Ἱερός Λόχος, Hierós Lókhos) was a troop of select soldiers, consisting of 150 pairs of male couples which formed the elite force of the Theban army in the 4th century BC, ending Spartan domination.

He mentions the Sacred Band as being led by the general Pelopidas and, alongside Epaminondas who commanded the army of Thebes (Boeotia), were responsible for the defeat of the Spartans at the decisive Battle of Leuctra (371 BC).

[1][2] And if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, 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.

[4][5] He records that the Sacred Band was originally formed by the boeotarch Gorgidas, shortly after the expulsion of the Spartan garrison occupying the Theban citadel of Cadmea.

Diodorus also records 300 picked men (ἄνδρες ἐπίλεκτοι) present in the Battle of Delium (424 BC), composed of heníochoi (ἡνίοχοι, "charioteers") and parabátai (παραβάται, "those who walk beside").

According to the British classical scholar Sir Kenneth Dover, this was a clear allusion to the Sacred Band, reflecting Xenophon's contemporary, albeit anachronistic, awareness of the Theban practice, as the dramatic date of the work itself is c. 421 BC.

[6][20][21] It was occasionally referred to as the "City Band" (ἐκ πόλεως λόχος), due to their military training and housing being provided at the expense of the Boeotian polis.

[23] In 375 BC, the command of the band was transferred to the younger boeotarch Pelopidas, one of the original Theban exiles who had led the forces who recaptured Cadmea.

[18] Prior to the creation of the Sacred Band under Gorgidas, the Athenians had helped the Theban exiles retake control of Thebes and the citadel of Cadmea from Sparta.

With the fall of the stockades, they were left with two choices, either to retreat back to the defensible walls of Thebes or to hold their ground and face the Spartans in the open.

[26] In unison, his mercenary hoplites immediately assumed the resting posture—with the spear remaining pointing upwards instead of towards the enemy, and the shield propped against the left knee instead of being hoisted at the shoulders.

Hearing reports that the Spartan garrison in Orchomenus had left for Locris, Pelopidas quickly set out with the Sacred Band and a few cavalry, hoping to capture it in their absence.

He then ordered his cavalry to ride up from the rear and charge while he reformed the Sacred Band into an abnormally dense formation, hoping to at least cut through the numerically superior Spartan lines.

Leaderless and encountering forces equal in discipline and training for the first time in the Sacred Band, the Spartans faltered and opened their ranks, expecting the Thebans to pass through and escape.

[31][36][41] In Plutarch's own words: For in all the great wars there had ever been against Greeks or barbarians, the Spartans were never before beaten by a smaller company than their own; nor, indeed, in a set battle, when their number was equal.

Cleombrotus then moved inland, following the eastward road towards Thebes, until he reached the Boeotian village of Leuctra (modern Lefktra, Plataies) near the southwestern end of the Theban plain.

[54][note 7] The Theban cavalry also helped by continuing to carry out intermittent attacks along the Spartan battle lines, holding their advance back.

Acting under his own initiative, Pelopidas quickly led the Sacred Band ahead of the Theban left wing to intercept the Spartan maneuver before it could be completed.

Defeat came at the Battle of Chaeronea (338 BC), the decisive contest in which Philip II of Macedon, with his son Alexander, extinguished Theban hegemony.

[55] The traditional hoplite infantry was no match for the novel long-speared Macedonian phalanx: the Theban army and its allies broke and fled, but the Sacred Band, although surrounded and overwhelmed, refused to surrender.

Plutarch records that Philip II, on encountering the corpses "heaped one upon another", understanding who they were, wept and exclaimed, Perish any man who suspects that these men either did or suffered anything unseemly.Though the significance of the battle was well-documented by ancient scholars, there is little surviving information on the deployment of the armies involved.

The original appearance of the monument is attested by contemporary coins of the period and showed that it took the form of a tree trunk mounted upon a cylindrical pedestal carved with metopes, triglyphs, and a series of stone shields.

[60][61] A common story, still often reported to this day, is that the lion was smashed to pieces during the subsequent Greek War of Independence (1821–1829), even using dynamite, by the klepht leader Odysseas Androutsos, who supposedly hoped to find it filled with treasure.

[64][65][66] Offers in the late 19th century by the British archeologist Cecil Harcourt Smith to fund the restoration of Lion of Chaeronea were initially refused by the Greeks.

[note 9] However, historians such as Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, Karl Julius Beloch, and Vincenzo Costanzi do not believe that the lion monument marks the location of the Sacred Band dead.

[68][71] Indeed, Pausanias' Description of Greece has proved to be an accurate and important guide to modern archeologists in rediscovering the locations of other ancient Greek monuments and buildings.

[12][75] Other noted classical scholars like Frank William Walbank and Felix Jacoby have also defended Callisthenes' descriptions of land battles in the past.

]"[34] This is echoed by the historians John Buckler and Hans Beck who conclude that "In sum, Plutarch's description of the battle of Tegyra does justice both to the terrain of Polygyra and to the information gleaned from his fourth-century sources.

He notes that all the surviving contemporary accounts of Thebes during the period of Theban hegemony between 371 and 341 BC were often highly critical; with their failures ridiculed and their accomplishments usually being downplayed or omitted altogether.

Demosthenes records this sentiment very clearly in a disclaimer in his speech On the Navy (354 BC): "It is difficult to speak to you about [Thebans], because you have such a hearty dislike of them that you would not care to hear any good of them, even if it were true.