I’ve never read Plutarch cover to cover–just the parts relevant to the topics and people I teach or write about. And I’ve tended not to read much about Thebes. Still and all, I think it’s embarrassing that I didn’t know about the Sacred Band of Thebes.
Plutarch (CE 46-120) talks about them relative to the Battle of Leuctra (July 371 BCE), a battle between Thebes and Sparta. Paul Davis’ 100 Decisive Battles (a really fun read, btw) says that the “Theban victory broke the power of Sparta” (23) and, perhaps more important, “the prestige of the Spartan army had been broken” (26).
This is what Plutarch (CE 46-120) has to say about the Sacred Band of Thebes (this is a 1917 translation, so bear with me–if you really can’t stand it, just skip the long quote):
“This battle first taught the other Greeks also that it was not the Eurotas, nor the region between Babyce and Cnacion [that is, Sparta] which alone produced warlike fighting men, but that wheresoever young men are prone to be ashamed of baseness and courageous in a noble cause, shunning disgrace more than danger, these are most formidable to their foes.”
The sacred band, we are told, was first formed by Gorgidas, of three hundred chosen men, to whom the city furnished exercise and maintenance, and who encamped in the Cadmeia; for which reason, too, they were called the city band; for citadels in those days were properly called cities. But some say that this band was composed of lovers and beloved. And a pleasantry of Pammenes is cited, in which he said that Homer’s Nestor was no tactician when he urged the Greeks to form in companies by clans and tribes, “That clan might give assistance unto clan, and tribes to tribes,” since he should have stationed lover by beloved.
“For tribesmen and clansmen make little account of tribesmen and clansmen in times of danger; whereas, a band that is held together by the friendship between lovers is indissoluble and not to be broken, since the lovers are ashamed to play the coward before their beloved, and the beloved before their lovers, and both stand firm in danger to protect each other. Nor is this a wonder since men have more regard for their lovers even when absent than for others who are present, as was true of him who, when his enemy was about to slay him where he lay, earnestly besought him to run his sword through his breast, ‘in order,’ as he said, ‘that my beloved may not have to blush at sight of my body with a wound in the back.’ It is related, too, that Iolaüs, who shared the labours of Heracles and fought by his side, was beloved of him. And Aristotle says that even down to his day the tomb of Iolaüs was a place where lovers and beloved plighted mutual faith. It was natural, then, that the band should also be called sacred, because even Plato calls the lover a friend ‘inspired of God.’
“It is said, moreover, that the band was never beaten, until the battle of Chaeroneia; and when, after the battle, Philip was surveying the dead, and stopped at the place where the three hundred were lying, all where they had faced the long spears of his phalanx, with their armour, and mingled one with another, he was amazed, and on learning that this was the band of lovers and beloved, burst into tears and said: ‘Perish miserably they who think that these men did or suffered aught disgraceful.’” (2.14: Plutarch, Pelopidas 17-19)
Or, in other words, it was a band of 150 homosexual male couples, and they were fierce, and they were feared.
It’s been a while, but, when I was crawling around homophobic corners of the Internet it was around the time there was a lot of pearl clutching about letting openly gay men into the military. And one of the arguments made, in addition to that there would be sexual harassment (I could never figure out whether the people who made that argument were thereby admitting that women in the military are sexually harassed), was that it would weaken the military because gay men can’t fight.
As Codex Melcher says on their blog, “People often ask when LGBTQ concerns arise ‘Why are tons of people suddenly gay/trans/not like me when it’s never existed in history before now'” and the answer is “They’ve always been here.”
I wish I’d know about the Sacred Band when I was trying to argue with homophobes.