Dr. Roel Konijnendijk

The sacred band.

The sacred band, exactly.

And the rest of the Boeotian army under Theban control, we know a little bit more, but it doesn't seem to show any special features.

One of the things that the Boeotians really do play out in this conflict is they have very strong cavalry, which obviously works very well for them when they're defending their territory, because that's one of the things that cavalry is really good at.

You know, you herd together your enemy army, you prevent them from spreading out across the countryside to pillage and burn.

You've managed to keep them together so they can't do any damage.

And this plays into Thebes' main strength, which is they have, you know, they're the grain area of central Greece, right?

They have these extensive plains that allow them to feed themselves.

But they also do this really innovative thing where they're defending territory.

They're building this long palisade across the entirety of Boeotia, keeping the Spartans out or at least funneling their movements.

So they're trying to play these different strengths in combination.

They have very good agricultural resources.

They have this territorial defense.

They have the cavalry to protect their lands.

And they now have this increasingly effective hoplite militia, this hoplite force, which is built around this core unit that's very, very capable called the Sacred Boundary.

So militarily as well as sort of strategically, they have a lot of cards to play when it comes to the defense of their own territory.

They have their own problems as well.

It's not exactly quiet on the Eastern front, but you do get the situation as well where the Spartans try for one last time to assert themselves as a naval power, which the Athenians, at this point, they've become completely resurgent as a naval empire.

They are provoked by Sparta into joining the war.

which they then sort of capitalise on by rebuilding what's sometimes called the Second Athenian Empire or the Second Athenian Confederacy, which is not an empire, of course, because we're all in abidance here with the King's Peace.