Dr. Roel Konijnendijk

You also have the idea of a unit that is composed of lovers, which is also brought up in Xenophon and in Plato.

In fact, there's discussion of the idea that this would be really effective, that this would really work.

But very interestingly, those authors who both lived at the time when the sacred band was around,

don't mention the Sacred Band as an example of such a unit, which obviously they should have, right?

It's an argument from silence, but it's very strange that they don't do this.

And so the argument there has been that in the same time that the Sacred Band was around, there was an idea that this would have been a really good idea, like a really effective concept,

And that those two things have become sort of merged in later traditions so that they've become attached to the sacred band, primarily because the Thebans already had kind of a reputation for really liking these pederastic relationships and being a really important part in their social and political sort of maturing, like the process of their upbringing.

And so for that reason, there is some doubt as to whether this unit actually was composed of homosexual lovers.

At the very least, you can say that it has that reputation because the Greeks were thinking about that.

as an idea and maybe thinking about trying it.

And they may or may not have done so, but we can't be certain.

So the idea is that a peace treaty is supposed to finish the Boeotian War.

The peace treaty has, of course, in conformity with the king's peace, has all the states listed separately.

The Thebans object.

They want to sign for all of Boeotia, which confirms their hegemony in that region.

Obviously, the Spartans say this is unacceptable, and really it is.

If we are still obeying the king's peace, it is.

So they strike the names of Thebes and the Boeotians off of the treaty, and they march on.

I mean, everyone sucks here, right?

But that's fundamentally the idea is that the Spartans then launch a surprise invasion of Thebes to kind of finally set them straight.