Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Them being a bunch of gay boys was what their enemies wrote about them to insult them but keep on believing ghat gay people were just highly accepted back then

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

This would not be insulting in ancient Greece, as no classical historian found it insulting, and all of them agree on its historicity. Only a few writers who were against Thebes make no mention of it, and doubt about its historicity did not exist before some revisionists in the modern academic field of history.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Thoughts about them being gay didn't really exist until the 70s

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Why lie? Every classical author which mentions the band notes its composition.

EDIT: I exaggerated a little here, and in later replies as you'll see, because this kind of narrative is pushed often in a way I dislike, a way which often takes misrepresentation to an extreme- not nice of me. :marseydisagree: This comment actually means "well, if we drop oratory works, and sources mentioned by name or fragmentary, a large majority (actually, all, since without Against Demosthenes, there are five excerpts which talk about the Sacred Band directly) of works mentions this". But to be clear: there are eleven 'surviving' (at least mentioned, or quoted, alluded) sources (not necessarily the same as books or texts), and six explicitly talk about a sexual aspect; likewise, six out of nine authors explicitly. There are six 'texts', and five of the 'texts' mention the sexual aspect. The number of soldiers*, and the elite capability, is constant.

I quote the six authors, and five texts in the next reply (Plutarch, Dio Chrysostom, Hieronymus the Peripatetic, Athenaeus, Polynaeus, Maximus Tyrius). For interests of completion, and integrity, I will also quote the rest:

What do you think it is, Athenians, that makes cities vary between good and evil fortunes? You will find only one cause: the counsellors and leaders. Take Thebes. It was a city; it became supreme. Under what leaders and generals? All the older men, on whose authority I shall give you the story, would admit that it was when Pelopidas, so they have it, led the Sacred Band and Epaminondas and their compeers were in command

Dinarchus's Against Demosthenes

*Diodorus names a Theban elite order with 500 soldiers, but he never mentions the Sacred Band, so it's unclear if he's referring to it, omitting it, doing it for some kind of realistic balance, or what. I mean, his work isn't exactly in a complete state, anyway.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Why believe the lies you've been told? You havent read any of these sources let alone first hand sources.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Unless the supposed gay dude from the 70s is a time traveler, I don't know what to say. Thebes is a polis which practiced pederasty quite a bit

Gorgidas, according to some, first formed the Sacred Band of three hundred chosen men, to whom, as being a guard for the citadel, the State allowed provision, and all things necessary for exercise: and hence they were called the city band, as citadels of old were usually called cities. Others say that it was composed of young men attached to each other by personal affection, and a pleasant saying of Pammenes is current, that Homer's Nestor was not well skilled in ordering an army, when he advised the Greeks to rank tribe and tribe, and family and family together, that "So tribe might tribe, and kinsmen kinsmen aid." but that he should have joined lovers and their beloved.

Plutarch's Life of Pelopidas

Moreover, take the splendid feats of the present day; would not a person discover that they are all done for glory's sake by persons willing to endure hardship and jeopardy, rather than by those who are drifting into the habit of preferring pleasure to a good name? Yet Pausanias, the lover of the poet Agathon, has said in his defence of those who wallow in lasciviousness that the most valiant army, even, would be one recruited of lovers and their favourites! ... But he went further and adduced as evidence in support of his position both the Thebans and the Eleans, alleging that this was their policy; he stated, in fine, that though sharing common beds they nevertheless assigned to their favourites places alongside themselves in the battle-line.

Xenophon's Symposium

...about training for war and the organization of not merely the heavy-armed troops in general, but also of the formation which Epaminondas is said to have invented, in which he put the 'lovers' along with their beloved in order that they might have a better chance of coming through safely and might be witness to one another's courage or cowardice β€” and history tells us that this Sacred Band, as it was called, conquered the Spartans in the battle of Leuctra though these were supported by all Greece.

Dio Chrysostom's Discourses

But Hieronymus the Peripatetic says that the ancients were anxious to encourage the practice of having boy-favourites, because the vigorous disposition of youths, and the confidence engendered by their association with each other, has often led to the overthrow of tyrants. For in the presence of his favourite, a man would choose to do anything rather than to get the reputation of being a coward. And this was proved in practice in the case of the Sacred Band, as it was called, which was established at Thebes by Epaminondas. Harmodius and Aristogeiton made a deadly attack on the Peisistratidae; and at Acragas in Sicily, the mutual love of Chariton and Melanippus produced a similar result, as we are told by Heracleides of Pontus, in his treatise On Amatory Matters.

Athenaeus's Deipnosophists

Gorgidas was the man, who first established the sacred band in Thebes; it consisted of three hundred men, who were devoted to each other by mutual obligations of love. And such was the effect of the passion, which they had conceived for each other, that they scarcely ever turned to flight; but they either died for each other, or bravely conquered.

Polyaenus's Strategems

Epaminondas, therefore, giving arms both to the lovers and the beloved, formed a sacred amatory band, powerful and unconquerable, skilfully defended and infrangible. This was a band, such as neither Nestor formed about Uion, though the most skilful of commanders, nor the Heraclidae about Peloponnesus, nor the Peloponnesians about Attica

Maximus Tyrius's Dissertations

You may deny the historicity of the Sacred Band. But just because someone on the Internet made up that the classics are a homosexual conspiracy, doesn't mean classical texts vanished. To deny that there was a strong association, whether it be true or not, of the Sacred Band with pederasty (as there are many classical Greek heroes of this type, not being a one off) - is a total fabrication, a total lie.

https://i.rdrama.net/images/17258206130597298.webp

EDIT: Miffin mentions that modern writers, apparently, translate 'friends' as 'lovers', due to some homosexual agenda. Well, firstly, all of these quotes are from translations pre-homosexual acceptance/liberation in the west [some of these are literally from the 17th-18th century], as I mention later. In any case, "eromeneos" and/or "erastes" are used in every single excerpt... it is not possible, indeed it is false, to translate these as "friends", as they mean beloved, and lover.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

You arent even quoting classical texts. You are quoting someones interpretation of them. Those are all modern interpretations of classic texts. You have no idea what you are talking about and only proving my point.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

What interpretation? How are they modern, do you know the citations? Did you even read anything?

EDIT: Miffin will continue to deny that I directly quoted classical texts for the rest of the exchange, presumably because Miffin didn't read the comment. I can't tell if it's a troll, or some kind of bluff (in which case this was all a projection? talk about the Internet being srs bzns... well, Miffin says later it's from a college class, so I assume it's well-meaning, but authority can be a piece of work)? In any case...

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Did you?

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

More comments

:marseyhesright:

These are not terribly great sources to establish that they actually were queers, but clearly the idea that they were was very common a few centuries later.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

As I've said, it's not even 100 % agreed that the Sacred Band existed nowadays. Especially in those times, a full historical consciousness was not developed among even the Greek intelligentsia, so having myth here and there was fine- and in this case, it's clearly in the tradition of Patroclus and Achilles, which is a religiously important pair, and whether or not they were truly homosexual, they were used as a pederastic role-model. It's also likely that texts which talk about its erotic nature, and those which do not mention it, derive from different sources. But it's hardly unorthodox to claim it did exist, and was homosexual. What is unorthodox, and a lie, is to say that some "gay dude from the 70s" is the first one to come up with the idea. There is no doubt that there were plenty of stories about eros in military valor, so even if we eliminate the Sacred Band, this is not something we can discard.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

They're all in on it!

:#marseyschizoshaking:

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Even translators who lived centuries ago, back when this aspect of ancient Greek culture was disagreeable, and criticised, not in the least because of the rejection of homosexuality in western societies. :marseysigh:

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

I'm fairly certain that guy who you're going back and forth with is a known jimmy rustler who takes on any weird position to troll the local tards.

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

More comments

They should've tried harder to make it sound insulting if they wanted that theory to hold ground :marseyindignant:

@Grue stand with israel

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Me suffixing every insult with -igger to make it cemented in theory

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Yeah i guess cute twinks dont really mind being called that these days but it was at one point considered a pretty big insult

Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

Link copied to clipboard
Action successful!
Error, please refresh the page and try again.