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Monday, April 20, 9:30:48 [ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: 1, 2, [3], 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ]

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Date Posted: 11:55:39 11/20/07 Tue
Author: tlk2vicki
Subject: Wow! I just looked up "Sacred Band of Thebes" and read about them. No wonder LJG admired them so much. Kinda hard for Jamie to dispute this one>>>>>
In reply to: sharon fisher 's message, "QOTD for Tuesday, November 20, 2007" on 20:01:02 11/19/07 Mon

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? " [3]

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. They were housed and trained at the city’s expense.[4] 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 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. 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.”[5] They became, in effect, the “crack” force of Greek soldiery [6], 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.

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