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Archaeological Survey of the Mass Burial at Chaeronea, 1880. Picture courtesy of Markley Boyer / Hellenic Ministry of Tradition and Sports activities, Directorate of Administration of the Nationwide Archive of Monuments, Division of the Historic Archive of Antiquities and Restorations by way of The New Yorker.
In 338 BCE, over thirty-five thousand males took to the fields of Chaeronea (1) and fought bravely towards King Philip II of Macedonia and his son, Alexander.
Of those thirty-five thousand males, in the midst of the battlefield with clashing shields and charging spears, was a small, specialised group of 300 warriors: the so-called Sacred Band of Thebes. (2) These males joined numerous others within the battle towards the conquering Macedonians within the pursuit of Greek freedom.
A bunch of 300 elite males was not an unusual sight in historic Greece. Nearly 100 years earlier than, in 480 BCE, in the course of the notorious Battle of Thermopylae, the bravery of 300 Spartan warriors towards the Persian king, Xerxes, was recorded for posterity. (3)
Just like the Spartan Three Hundred, Philip and Alexander in the end annihilated the Theban band. (4) However it isn’t the same fates of the boys of those respective teams that arouse the curiosity of the fashionable reader. It’s that The Sacred Band of Thebes was a pressure, we’re advised, of 100 and fifty pairs of male lovers. (5)
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Epaminondas defends Pelopidas. c. 1900s. Theban common Epamindonas defends the captain of the sacred band, Pelopidas, towards the advancing Spartans.
The town of Thebes, the place this band had been based in 378 BCE (6) was notably distinctive in the way it seen eroslove, between males.
In Plato Symposiumthe younger Pausanias claims that among the many Boeotians (primarily Thebans) “The rule is clearly established that it’s proper
to fulfill (male) lovers, and nobody, younger or outdated, would say that it’s mistaken.” (7)
Xenophon, a recent of Plato, additionally declares it “among the many Boeotians a person and a youth stay collectively suzugents” – ‘joined’, a phrase that elsewhere refers to a lifelong bond of marriage. (8)
In fact, it was not unusual for male-to-male encounters to be pursued by historic Greek troopers, demonstrated by the institutionalized apply of homoeroticism within the Spartan militia and the cities of Crete. (9) The very act of homoeroticism was completely included into the academic methods of the Greek world. It was a way of ushering a boy into maturity, and within the classical interval it prolonged to increased tradition: “from the army to athletic video games, from philosophy to historiography.” (10) Thebes’ official assist for males eros its entire police (metropolis), would then actively enhance the entire of Theban society. (11)
However why would Thebes particularly create an elite unit of certain male lovers if
was homoeroticism already a part of the cultural material of historic Greece?
Based on Plato’s philosophical thought, lover-soldiers would encourage the braveness and bravado wanted on the battlefield. Plato tells us that:
The final individual a lover may bear to be seen leaving his place within the line of battle, or leaving his weapons, is his sweetheart; as an alternative, he would favor to die many occasions. As to abandoning his lover, or failing to assist him at risk—nobody is so cowardly that he couldn’t be impressed to braveness by love, and made equal with one who is of course very courageous. — the symposium, 179a
Supposedly, if such a small band spurred on by love “fought aspect by aspect, they may defeat just about all of humanity.” (12) The Sacred Band of Thebes, with eros like their willpower and their weapons, would theoretically be an armed pressure to be reckoned with.
And but the traditional texts that explicitly point out The Sacred Band of Thebes are surprisingly far and few between, every with various levels of historic worth. Solely eleven texts by 9 totally different authors replicate on The Sacred Band of Thebes, and of these six point out an erotic composition. (13) Even Plato’s point out of “somewhat band” could not essentially point out Thebes’ love warriors.
In order that leads us to contemplate the query:
Did The Sacred Band of Thebes actually exist, or was it merely a philosophical metaphor in regards to the significance and energy of male-male love?
Students comparable to David Leitao argue for the latter; that The Sacred Band was merely a whimsical real-world analogy, utilized in literary texts to assist the utopian splendid of a metropolis or a military constructed from the ennobling bonds between two male lovers. (14)
Historian and writer of The Sacred BandNevertheless, James Romm advocates the talk that the Theban Love Warriors actually existed, in all its glory erosand all its glory.
The invention in 1880 of almost 300 skeletons beneath the soil of Chaeronea, which Romm explains, is believed to be the ultimate resting place of The Sacred Band of Thebes after their tragic conflict with the Macedonian military. (15) Plutarch within the first century AD. speaks emotionally of this burial in Chaeronea:
“When Philip, after the battle, examined the useless, and halted on the spot the place the 300 lay, all of whom had confronted the lengthy spears of his phalanx with their armor and mingled with one another, he was astonished. , and when he discovering that this was the group of lovers and beloved, he burst into tears and stated: ‘Perish miserably those that suppose that these males did or suffered any infamy.’ — Pelopidas, 18.5
Such was the highly effective show of eros to Philip, so touching that it introduced the nice king to tears. Marking the burial website, a marble lion was erected in honor of the fallen, serving as a “image of their braveness.” (16)
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The Lion of Chaeronea, reconstructed in 1880. The low wall encloses the mass grave of The Sacred Band of Thebes.
To this present day, beneath the proud lion, a fierce protector of heroes and warriors, are the skeletal stays of the supposed Sacred Band of Thebes. The our bodies had been reburied as shortly as that they had been discovered. A few of the damaged bones weren’t simply gashes and scars, a grim reminder of the fury of conflict, but additionally with arms linked on the elbows, in a show of comradeship and affection. (18)
Whether or not the burial website accommodates the stays of The Sacred Band of Thebes, in the event that they even existed, remains to be a degree of competition. However it isn’t the legitimacy of those 300 males that ought to be acknowledged. On the very core of the sacred band, whether or not they have been flesh and blood or a philosophical dream, is eros. Love not merely between two males, however love that may transcend peace and conflict, and life and demise; love that conjures up braveness and bravado; love that may take over the world.
The Sacred Band of Thebes reminds us that it isn’t solely the violence of the previous that can stay within the historical past books, but additionally all its amorous ardour.
Written by Tobias J. Fulton
Tobias J. Fulton is a lecturer within the Division of Historical past at La Trobe College, the place they accomplished a Masters by Analysis in Classics. Their thesis explored the ideas of sexuality and identification in antiquity and its affect on trendy audiences.
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Rome 2021, p. 239.
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Crompton 1994, p. 25.
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Herodotus, 7.224.1-2.
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Leitao 2002, p. 143.
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Crompton 1994, p. 25.
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Ibid., 25.
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Plato, 182b.
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Rome 2021, p. 12.
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Leitao 2002, p. 144.
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Percy 2005, p. 14.
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Rome 2021, p. 12.
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Plato, 179a.
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Leitao 2002, p. 145.
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Ibid., 162.
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Rome 2021, pp. 3-4.
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Pausanias, 9.40.5.
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Rome 2021, p. 3.
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Rome, pp. 3-4.
Major
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Herodotus, The tales, tr. A. de Selincourt (London: Penguin Books, 1996).
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Plutarch, Should, tr. B. Perrin (London: Harvard College Press, 1917).
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Pausanias, Information to Greece I: Central Greece, tr. P. Levi (London: Penguin Books, 1979).
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Plato, The symposium, tr. C. Gill (London: Penguin Books, 1999).
Secondary
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Crompton, Louis, “‘An Military of Lovers’: The Sacred Band of Thebes”, Historical past as we speak44/11 (1994), pp. 23-29.
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Percy III, William Armstrong, “Rethinking Greek Homosexualities”, Journal of Homosexuality, 49/3-4 (2005), pp. 13-61.
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Leitao, David, “The Legend of the Sacred Band” in Martha C. Nussbaum & Juha Sihvola (eds.), The Sleep of Motive: Erotic Expertise and Sexual Ethics in Historical Greece and Rome (Chicago: Chicago Press, 2002).
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Rome, James, The Sacred Band (New York: Scribner, 2021).
Tobias, in collaboration with the Hellenic Museum group, has been central to the creation of the upcoming sold-out Satisfaction Month occasion Greek Love: Need, Sexuality, and Id within the Classical World. This occasion has additionally been made potential with the assist of our sponsors, Melbourne Gin Firm.
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