Sacred Band of Thebes

[hoplite14gr]

In their comprehensive study on elite hoplite units Victor Alonso and Klaus Freitag (ISSN: 0213-01181) demonstrated that a "Holy Company" - "Sacred Band" -associated with the city states patron deity existed in many city states. These units are also reffered as logadae or epilektoi and in some localities by other names. Thebans had no exclusivity.

Kind regards

[Giannis K. Hoplite]

However it's a bit exagerated to identify evry unit of 300 or 100 men that are some times dismissed from the rest of the army with each state's "epilektoi". There is no so much evidence for this.It is always a possibility,though. But when special forces of any kind are used,historians tend to mention them first hand. i.e. Skiritae,sacred band,hetairoi,hypaspists etc. And since most authors were Athenians or at least were in close quarters with Athens,the logadae,one would imagine-would be mentioned with their name to glorify them. However they're very rarely mentioned.
Khaire
Giannis

[Miles]

Note on my post: I didn't mean all 300 were killed on the spot--I did know only 254 skeletons were found under the lion--by "destroyed to the last man," I meant the overwhelming majority were killed, and every man in the unit was put out of action. Sloppy language; you're right, Marcus and Paralus; sorry 'bout that.

Paullus Scipio -- Hmm? They weren't? New info on that?

[Paralus]

Sloppy language; you're right, Marcus and Paralus; sorry 'bout that.

Paullus Scipio -- Hmm? They weren't? New info on that?

I wasn't actually 'picking' on you! Destroyed to man is better viewed as stood their ground to a man. As has been suggested, the wounded may well have died later. In any case, the unit will have, by virtue of the decimation, been virtually destroyed. Twenty-two (likely less) pairs out of 150 no longer a unit makes eh?

There is no evidence that I can adduce that places a "Sacred Band" at Plataea near a century earlier.

[Miles]

Oh, I see, the person who posted they didn't fight was responding to a (later self-corrected) confusion of Chaironeia with Plataea. NOW I get it. Bit slow, me.

[hoplite14gr]

Sacred Bands "HIEROI LOCHOI"
Aeaneias Tactica 16,7 26.10 38.2 Loeb. plus the excellent work of the two akdemics that I mentioned in my previous post.

Kind regards

[ChopinsPride]

This sounds strange but was a hoplite trained force of crack soldiers each "unit" was made up of 150 pairs of homosexual lovers. The Thebans believed a man should never leave his lover in battle. They had a reputation as somthing of an elite but were equiped as any other hoplite was.
The Thebans was shocking victory was at the battle of Leuctra, where 11,000 spartans were defeated by 9,300 Thebans.
Hope this helps! If you want to know any information then e-mail me at [email protected] !

[Paralus]

The Thebans was shocking victory was at the battle of Leuctra, where 11,000 spartans were defeated by 9,300 Thebans.
Hope this helps! If you want to know any information then e-mail me at [email protected] !

Not quite. The "Lacadaemomian" component was small. The homoioi were only some seven hundred from memory.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I thought it was 7000, but probably wrong. :?
The Spartans were reduced in numbers due to the decrease in
The elites, due to many years of defeat, and low birthates among other
causes of their decline. IIRC.... :roll:

[Marcvs75]

Paralus is right. Only 700 Spartiates were present at Leuktra. Their total number was between 1000 - 1500 max. at the time of Leuktra.
Of the 700 Spartiates 400 died, among them almost all the royal bodyguard, officers and of course the king himself.

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

It's been a while since I read any Greek sources :oops: guess pride can have memory altering effects..... :roll: :lol: :oops:

[Charlie Hilbert]

After years of research, translation, writing, editing, and formatting (formatting was the least fun), I have published the only history of The Sacred Band of Thebes. It's on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?u...&x=18&y=24

Features maps, endnotes, bibliography, time-line, lists of personal and place names, a glossary, etc.
Sources translated from Greek and Latin include: Xenophon, Diodorus, Plutarch, Pausanias, Polyainos, Frontinus, Nepos, etc.

As much as possible I have accounted for the Band's activities from 378 to 338 BCE.

[Ghostmojo]

I thought it was 7000, but probably wrong. :?
The Spartans were reduced in numbers due to the decrease in
The elites, due to many years of defeat, and low birthates among other
causes of their decline. IIRC.... :roll:

Yes more like 700 of whom 400 perished (including most/all of the Hippeis).

The decline in Spartiate (as opposed to Spartan) numbers was down to more than just birthrate decline. It was more because of a wandering from true Lykourgan principles and the continuing and worsening division of land inequality, which meant many homoioi couldn't pay their dues and suffered a subsequent loss of status. A growing proportion of the Spartan warrior males would have become Hypomeiones who were 'inferiors' - but only because of loss of mess status. Not because they weren't brave or useful soldiers. However, their preparedness to fight for something that they were no longer a part of would have irked many and this issue developed and worsened over time.

Regarding the reason why the Thebans chose 300 men (150x2 pairs) for their Sacred Band, I can only guess because this was a common number in Greek elite warrior band formations at the time.

It is an odd figure though, because (like the Hippeis at Sparta) it doesn't equate well with larger unit numbers which were more often of the 32-36/128-144/512-576 nature. The Spartans also used other units of 300 on occasions (who weren't the Hippeis) and of course the famous Skiritai numbered 600 and the Brasideioi 700.

The Thebans may well have chosen 300 purely to match the 300 at Sparta - a figure possibly going back to the two contending sides at the Battle of the Champions between Argos and Sparta. My own view as to why they had 300 at Sparta was because the oft-quoted 100 bodyguards of the Spartan King actually meant 100 men each from each of the three Dorian sub-ethnic groups = 300 men in total - possibly acting in rotation - possibly also acting together on occasion (as the Hippeis). It seems logical (although difficult to prove) that each Hippagretai chose 100 men from one of these sub-groups; the Dorian 'tribes' - 100 Dymanes, 100 Hylleis, 100 Pamphyloi. At Thebes of course they weren't Dorian Greeks, but Aiolian Greeks, and the 300 was 150x2 (for different reasons) rather 100x3; but the numerical inspiration may well come from copying the Spartans who possibly/probably were the first to employ this figure.

[Paralus]

Plut Cleom. 3.1
But at the death of Leonidas Cleomenes came to the throne, and saw that the citizens were by that time altogether degenerate. The rich neglected the common interests for their own private pleasure and aggrandizement; the common people, because of their wretched state at home, had lost all readiness for war and all ambition to maintain the ancient Spartan discipline;

Plut. Agis 5.1-4
And here I may say that the Lacedaemonian state began to suffer distemper and corruption soon after its subversion of the Athenian supremacy filled it with gold and silver [...]. For the men of power and influence at once began to acquire estates without scruple, ejecting the rightful heirs from their inheritances; and speedily the wealth of the state streamed into the hands of a few men [...] Thus there were left of the old Spartan families not more than seven hundred, and of these there were perhaps a hundred who possessed land and allotment; while the ordinary throng, without resources and without civic rights, lived in enforced idleness, showing no zeal or energy in warding off foreign wars, but ever watching for some opportunity to subvert and change affairs at home.

The statement about the rivulets of silver tumbling into the Eurotas is almost assuredly true. The "subversion" had begun during the war and continued apace. The movement away from the "Lukourgan" provisions was well underway during the Peloponnesian War. The result only gave it impetus.

[Ghostmojo]

Plut Cleom. 3.1
But at the death of Leonidas Cleomenes came to the throne, and saw that the citizens were by that time altogether degenerate. The rich neglected the common interests for their own private pleasure and aggrandizement; the common people, because of their wretched state at home, had lost all readiness for war and all ambition to maintain the ancient Spartan discipline;

Plut. Agis 5.1-4
And here I may say that the Lacedaemonian state began to suffer distemper and corruption soon after its subversion of the Athenian supremacy filled it with gold and silver [...]. For the men of power and influence at once began to acquire estates without scruple, ejecting the rightful heirs from their inheritances; and speedily the wealth of the state streamed into the hands of a few men [...] Thus there were left of the old Spartan families not more than seven hundred, and of these there were perhaps a hundred who possessed land and allotment; while the ordinary throng, without resources and without civic rights, lived in enforced idleness, showing no zeal or energy in warding off foreign wars, but ever watching for some opportunity to subvert and change affairs at home.

The statement about the rivulets of silver tumbling into the Eurotas is almost assuredly true. The "subversion" had begun during the war and continued apace. The movement away from the "Lukourgan" provisions was well underway during the Peloponnesian War. The result only gave it impetus.

Indeed. Although I am not certain we can say the movement began during the Peloponnesian War itself - certainly afterwards as Sparta proved how unfit she was to hold her imperial gains together. Plutarch's observations of course have sharper focus in the later period he discusses - Agis IV and Kleomenes III - which is several generations and nearly 200 years later. By this time things had certainly come to a head. The rot had been underway for a long time by then with Spartan condottieres attempting to fill the city's coffers - usually leading mercenary or foreign forces.

The comparisons of perhaps three battles all fought at the same site are instructive here. At 1st Mantinea in 418BC we had a massed allied army with a considerable component of regular Spartiate warriors (with perhaps a few hypomeiones amongst the ranks?). Over fifty years later at 2nd Mantinea in 362BC we see much reduced Spartan figures; and even later at 3rd Mantinea in 207BC virtually a mercenary force with who knows how many actual Spartiates in the Spartan phalanx of the time?