The Sacred Band of Thebes

Interactive Transcript

spk_0 Hi everyone and welcome back to the final episode in this series of Sky

spk_0 History's Not What You Thought You New. I'm your host Dr Fernredell and while I am

spk_0 gutted this is the last one for now, it won't be not what you thought you knew

spk_0 if we didn't have a unique story to end on. In this episode we'll be talking

spk_0 about the Sacred Band of Thebes and Elite Warrior Troop from the 4th century

spk_0 BC, supposedly consisting of 150 pairs of male lovers and I'll be speaking to

spk_0 Professor of Ancient History at the University of Warwick, James Davidson and

spk_0 Professor of Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies at Bucknell University

spk_0 Stephanie Larson. Those are experts from across the globe and I'm really

spk_0 excited. But first let's head back almost 2,400 years ago to Ancient Thebes.

spk_0 It's late at night and we're standing at the Tomb of Iolaus, one of Ancient

spk_0 Greece's mythical heroes. Iolaus was the lover of Heracles who might

spk_0 recognise better by his Roman name Hercules. Here at his tomb amongst the flickering

spk_0 flames of the oil lamps men arrive in pairs, one final stop before they head

spk_0 into a great battle. They're here to pledge their undying devotion not just to

spk_0 the great city state of Thebes but also to each other because these soldiers are

spk_0 unique in the Ancient World. Their bonds are not just formed in training camps and on

spk_0 battlefields but also from love. But what do we mean by love in the Ancient

spk_0 World and when we talk about the Sacred Band of Thebes being 150 pairs of male

spk_0 lovers are referring to the definition of homosexual love that we today would

spk_0 understand. Thebes was one of the most important cities in Ancient Greece, some might

spk_0 even say arrival to the powerhouse of Athens and it's home to many legendary

spk_0 heroes and gods, Heracles, Dionysus, even Ederpus. And for the men and boys who

spk_0 lived there their way of life was one we may be surprised at because here,

spk_0 adoration, affection and physical desire between those of the male sex is

spk_0 celebrated. In fact, it informs how the city is run, its political life and the

spk_0 education system of Ancient Thebes. And as we already know, it's military

spk_0 life with the Sacred Band. One of the problematic areas with this period

spk_0 of history is the idea of love between Old Men and younger boys. Our popular

spk_0 consciousness understands this in very simple terms as pedophilia or abuse.

spk_0 So this is something we will be digging into and finding out just how true that

spk_0 understanding of it is. I want to understand what this world is actually like.

spk_0 So to add more context to the Sacred Band, I'm speaking with someone who I know

spk_0 will totally alter my view of the Ancient World.

spk_0 I'm joined now by James Davidson and he's professor of Ancient history at the University

spk_0 of Warwick, specializing in the social history of Ancient Greece. Now, James,

spk_0 the Sacred Band of Thebes is a troop of soldiers who composed of 150 pairs of male

spk_0 lovers. Is this a rare thing in the Ancient World or is this very common?

spk_0 The army of lovers, as it's called, is unique in Greek history, but it's based on best

spk_0 soldiers are going to be pairs of male lovers, like Achilles and Patroclus or Heracles

spk_0 and Ealeus. So this idea of the male couple being very good at, let's say,

spk_0 feats of self-sacrificing gallantry, something like that.

spk_0 There are lots of accounts of where this comes from. Some people say it comes from people

spk_0 looking at the alternative, which is tribal alliances and family alliances, and that the

spk_0 important thing about same sex devotion, what I call not homosexuality, but homobosotidness.

spk_0 You're prepared to die for this person that you're so in love with.

spk_0 Eros in Ancient Greece is the most overblown, life-changing, life-churning kind of emotion,

spk_0 you know, to call it lovers is something very pale by comparison. They think that this is a way in which you can rise above tribe

spk_0 and family, and perhaps for the state, for the polis. You can, another word for the army of lovers,

spk_0 is the army of the city, the army of the polis of the state. So that shows you a weird way in which homosexual

spk_0 passion can help to break down tribal, family, clan alliances in favour of a city alliance,

spk_0 in favour of a universal, political relationship.

spk_0 So it's not a case of same sex desire being something that is hidden or hushed up as we might think of it in our most recent past.

spk_0 This is something that is an indelible part of Ancient Greek society.

spk_0 Think of all those famous people in the 19th century or the early 20th century, and you're trying to work out,

spk_0 you know, were they or weren't they? Did they really or didn't they? You know, all these letters,

spk_0 and some of you get a coded diary in which you think, oh gosh, right, or someone catches a disease and you think,

spk_0 ah, well, in that case, but in the ancient world, we have none of that. We only have these great public displays,

spk_0 but the publicity is also disguising. Because I mean, I sometimes talk about in terms of purple smoke or pink smoke.

spk_0 If someone is shouting about something, you know, if they're going around performing the role of being an admirer,

spk_0 what we, the Greeks called an erraste is almost like public role they've got.

spk_0 That doesn't necessarily mean that they really have any feelings for a particular boy.

spk_0 It just means that they're taking on the public role of that, of a lover. They're celebrating them for some kind of social purpose.

spk_0 You've touched on this very briefly, this love of boys or a particular boy.

spk_0 And today we might recognize the term pederraste, which is connected to this period or is drawn from ancient Greece.

spk_0 Can you explain a little bit more about that and also how our modern day conceptions might be, might find this difficult?

spk_0 Well, first of all, there is the, so the whole question of sex is important.

spk_0 Are we talking about people having sex with under-aged boys, for instance?

spk_0 Is that what we're talking about?

spk_0 No, what we're talking about are people following 18-year-olds around or 18-year-olds following under 18s around.

spk_0 Sometimes in a group, writing poems about how wonderful they are.

spk_0 Writing, and this is a very specific formula in Athens, they will write so and so is beautiful.

spk_0 And they will write on a gate outside the gate of the boy out on the door in the gymnasium.

spk_0 Sometimes we hear about them camping outside the house.

spk_0 Pleasure has a wonderful vision of a guy called Comedy, who has, you know, his, his, one of his relatives.

spk_0 And he turns out to be an oligarch, a fascist, if you like, a right-wing revolutionary.

spk_0 But he turns the clock back and pictures him in his youth as this great beauty.

spk_0 So we think he's about 18 and everybody is admiring him.

spk_0 So he's in the gymnasium, he's followed around by a group of older men.

spk_0 And also the younger boys are staring at him as if he were a statue, as Plato says, as if he were a statue.

spk_0 So it's this open public culture of worshiping a particular youth.

spk_0 So it's an idealization of someone's physicality or their emotions or both the person that they are.

spk_0 But there isn't a physical, sexual partnership between those two or a relationship between those two people you don't think.

spk_0 So the word callos, which they use all the time, means noble in terms of, you know, your class, your status, your good character.

spk_0 And it's also means beautiful. Sometimes they specify they're saying he was callos in appearance.

spk_0 He was nice to look at.

spk_0 But normally they just leave it like callos, we don't know.

spk_0 And I think they think that good people are good looking.

spk_0 But it's this physical, it's also about the body.

spk_0 You know, this is the culture where in the gymnasium people are exercising naked.

spk_0 So you show what a great person who are because you've got fantastic musculature.

spk_0 You know, you've got great pecs. You're a good person. You're from a noble family.

spk_0 Even in the, you know, in the Homeric epics, people say, gosh, you're so good looking.

spk_0 You must come from a good family.

spk_0 You know, whereas the opposite word, ice cross means shameful, ugly and low class.

spk_0 So there's this constant mixing of these three things.

spk_0 But the body is definitely there. So one of comedy's cousin says to Socrates in the narrative of Plato.

spk_0 Well, Socrates, let me tell you, if you saw him naked, you would forget about his face.

spk_0 His body is so stunning. And they use the same word stunning classes.

spk_0 You know, you're going to be, you're going to have your mind blown by this body.

spk_0 Or wrapped up in heroes. So yes, it's definitely physical.

spk_0 So we have this idea of the ancient Greeks as some of the forefathers of modern thought of a golden time in history.

spk_0 Is it actually that part of the society is just deeply shallow?

spk_0 Or is this if they're with this fascination of the body and the idealization of youth and beauty and physicality?

spk_0 I mean, in many ways, this is something we would very much recognize about as an issue in our modern society.

spk_0 Where does it come from? The Greek word gymnasium, you know, is what started out, you know, the whole movement of the Olympics and the end of the 19th century, the whole body culture.

spk_0 From the end of the 19th century, those old fashioned photographs where people are posing as if they were Greek statues with little.

spk_0 Dig leaves tied over their genitals, the whole body culture also, you know, is a Greek revival in lots of ways.

spk_0 Eugene Sandown, the very famous body builder of the late 19th century, who dressed as if he was a Greek statue.

spk_0 That's right. So there was, I mean, sometimes it's like an alibi for people to look at, you know, sexy men,

spk_0 pretending that it's all, you know, kind of appreciation of Greek cultures, Oscar Wilde might have referred to it.

spk_0 So if we have this, this part of Greek society that is the celebration of, of late adolescence, young men, younger sort of older boys,

spk_0 where does the shift come to the sacred band of Thebes where we know that this is men who are sharing physical love as well and who are, who are talked about as lovers, is there, is there an age of consent in Greek society or is it, is it relationships with very young boys, round on or is it something that's accepted with older men?

spk_0 Sorry, I have so many questions about this.

spk_0 The fundamental thing to recognize, I think, is that ancient Greek societies, almost all of them, that we can know of, or organize around age in a kind of very formal tribal way, if you like.

spk_0 They don't have birthdays in the way that we recognize them, the calendar is all over the place, it's a lunar solar calendar.

spk_0 And for that reason or for any other reason, they don't really, they're not really obsessed with birth dates.

spk_0 So what seems to happen is that in Athens, at least, when you think you're 18, you have to go to your village, you have to go to your parish, and you present yourself naked, or I guess your family presents you, you know,

spk_0 naked in the parish and they say, we think he's 18, do you agree? And they say, okay, he's 18, and then they send him to the city council, and they have to say, okay, we agree he's 18.

spk_0 And if they say, no, he's not, they will find the parish.

spk_0 Wow.

spk_0 Because you know, they might want to inherit early or something like that, it's quite important.

spk_0 And then the people dispute this, but I think it's pretty certain that everybody has their birthday at the same time I knew you.

spk_0 At the beginning of the, the 18 in calendar, which is in the midsummer, every all everyone who's 18, becomes a single age class, it's like being at school, yeah, you're in a year.

spk_0 And that carries on until you retire at the age of 60.

spk_0 So you can't hold any office, you can't become a general, you can't sit on a jury until you're 30.

spk_0 And the formula for those who are rejected by the council is go back to boys.

spk_0 So we know that boys is some piders, can be a very specific name for under 18s.

spk_0 But it's also used in the way that we use it boys or anybody who's young.

spk_0 So the under 18s, the technical official group of boys are protected by law about who they're allowed to mix with.

spk_0 So the even the 18 year old and not allowed to go into the gymnasium and talk to the boys, they even have special slaves who are called pedagogues, pider go goi, which means boy escorts.

spk_0 And they're shaperones and they are there to protect the boys from unwanted attention, not so much that they're going to have, you know, they're going to be raped or something like that, but they're going to be seen to be alone with people.

spk_0 So just like I always think the comparison is like women in a Jane Austen novel.

spk_0 Yeah, seen alone together, you know, well, that's damaging to your reputation.

spk_0 So you have to, so this, what Plato talks about in this symposium is this great what he calls a complicated paradox, which is that you're supposed to add mad them.

spk_0 You're supposed to follow them around. You're supposed to say how beautiful they are.

spk_0 But at the same time, the boys are protected fiercely by these slaves, by these laws about who's allowed to see who in the gymnasium.

spk_0 It's all very complicated.

spk_0 So where does, where do same sex relationships then fit? Is that something that happens in your 20s and your 30s that you might form an attachment to another man or an older man?

spk_0 So first of all, you have these different kinds of relationship. We have this pack, what I call the wolf pack of admirers. Yes, which we see in places, commodities elsewhere.

spk_0 This is literally a group of people following you around saying how wonderful you are.

spk_0 It's a weird custom. The Romans thought it was very weird.

spk_0 And then you have one on one is then you have relationships so and so is so and so is that my era.

spk_0 And when Plutarch is talking about the sacred band of thieves, Plutarch who's a writer from the Roman period, but it's a local boy, he's from very close to the thieves.

spk_0 He talks about this institution of the sacred band almost everything we know is from the single author single text and he says that he knows a piece of Aristotle, who's much earlier saying that they would plight they would pledge themselves at the tomb of Heracles boyfriend, Eelaus.

spk_0 So we know that that is a one to one partnership, if you like. So that's another kind of relationship.

spk_0 And those must be somehow formalized institutionalized. We hear about different rituals and creed, for instance, where there's a kind of mock kidnapping.

spk_0 And the the boys kidnapped and then the two, both the admirer who's been allowed to kidnap the boy in this mock tug of war.

spk_0 And the boy who's been allowed to be kidnapped in this mock tug of war are given special titles and special clothes to her so they're recognized by society.

spk_0 So these are political relationships and when Plato talks about I think this is one of the great misreadings of ancient Greek homosexuality.

spk_0 So Plato in a long passage talks about what is the right way for someone to yield to a lover.

spk_0 You know, so they're importuring them and saying how wonderful they are. When is it right to put out, if you like.

spk_0 And he concludes that the only reason to put out is for the sake of virtue.

spk_0 And so everyone says, oh, so really it's all about virtue. It's all about virtue. But it's clear reading between the lines that normally that is not what happens normally and Plato elaborates it. He says it's for virtue.

spk_0 It's not for political advancement. It's not for money.

spk_0 And the implication is that normally it's for political advantage and it's for money. So you make a very good attachment that will last you a long time. Now then you might get married.

spk_0 I was going to ask what is this. So we have we have who we have this idea of you have young boys who are admired who may pick up or what we might understand as a wealthy patron or someone who could advance them.

spk_0 That connection remains a lifelong one. And throughout that time they may also marry they may be cut they may see a sexuality that is much broader. I mean, are we talking about bisexuality here? Is that really what ancient Greece is? It's just an entire state of bisexuals.

spk_0 Well, yes, but in a way that's because you're assuming this, you know, sense of sexual orientation. If it's an institution, if it's something which is really important for your future, if everyone's doing it in this public way, we don't know what happens behind closed doors. All we know is that people are writing poems, saying how beautiful someone is physically.

spk_0 And if you're a gay, then there's nothing to preclude you also having children marrying in some cases, we know that the marriage heterosexual marriage follows the same sex, the homosexual association. And I think no one would disagree that ancient Greece is a patriarchal society.

spk_0 But the fact that men are also sexually objectified, you know, in the same way that women are normally sexually objectified through the rest of history, if you like, does mean that there's an interesting that the whole kind of men versus women is more complicated in ancient Greece that there's, you know, it's the them and us is also us and us.

spk_0 Do you see what I mean? So one of the earliest references to rape to a legal definition of rape in our terms, normally rape means kidnapped, yes, repair to snatch and Greek are padd saying, but the first definition we have is from Crete law code in gawton and has the definition anyone who has sex by force with someone. So it's the first definition of sex by rape a sex by force.

spk_0 And it says with a man or with a woman.

spk_0 So this is weird kind of gender equality or gender substitution, which comes out of this Greek homosexuality, which I think people have not really thought about as much that there's a kind of they are seen as two sides of the same coin, if you like.

spk_0 And the men who are objectifying women, the quarters and especially have themselves been objectified have been they know what it's like to be a sex object, if you like.

spk_0 To go back to the sacred band of thieves from my last question, how were they seen in ancient Greek society? Were they the pinnacle of achievement, were they celebrated or were they something that was a surprise?

spk_0 This is a very difficult question because there's very little information about the sacred band of thieves, although they're very famous for us, as I said almost all of our information comes from Plutok, writing, you know, how many years 400 years after the last gasp, the battle of Kirona, one important thing he says is that when Philip of Macedon Alexander's father having slaughtered them, having kind of eradicated.

spk_0 The sacred band of thieves was walking over the battlefield, he said, shame on anyone who thinks that these men are doing anything shameful, so he was celebrating them and we're all thinking like what's what shameful thing might they might be they'd be suspecting.

spk_0 So he's celebrating them as they were.

spk_0 I think one of the things that James has made really clear is this idea of an age of consent, the fact that the boys under the age of 18 were considered protected in ancient thieves.

spk_0 And this is an idea or concept we can understand very much today. Consent around sex and the age of consent has always been important to us.

spk_0 In fact, here in the UK, it was the Victorians who fought very hard to make sure the age of consent was raised from just 13 to 16 in 1885.

spk_0 So knowing that boys under the age of 18 were protected also removes any arguments that some might try to make for the ancient Greek supporting Peter Fylia.

spk_0 That's just another example of how history can be corrupted by popular misunderstanding and the truth last.

spk_0 So here's what we've learned so far about ancient thieves and the sacred band. Society was patriarchal, men idolized and obsessed over one another, and relationships were often formed between older and younger men that were seen as educational, political and economically beneficial.

spk_0 And finally, that these relationships could include physical and emotional connection.

spk_0 I love the term James used there that of homobusottedness between men, and it does leave me wondering what life was like for women in this city.

spk_0 But I think that's a subject we're going to have to leave until our next series.

spk_0 So now we know more about ancient thieves. I want to know more about the evidence for its famous warriors.

spk_0 Plato, one of our most famous ancient Greeks, and a founding father of Western thought, wrote,

spk_0 if there were only some way of contriving that a state or an army should be made up of lovers and their beloved, they would be the very best governors of their own city, abstaining from all dishonor and emulating one another in honor, and when fighting at each other's side, although amere handful, they would overcome the world.

spk_0 For what lover would not choose rather to be seen by all mankind than by his beloved, either when abandoning his post or throwing away his arms, he would be ready to die a thousand deaths rather than endure this, for who would desert his beloved or fail him in the hour of danger.

spk_0 That sounds a lot like the sacred band to me. So to add more context to this legend, I have someone who has led an archaeological team to excavate the temple of Apollo in Thebes in 2013, uncovering graves, a garbage pit, and various other important items to an understanding of the sacred band and the wider world of ancient Greece.

spk_0 I'm joined now by Stephanie Larsen, and she's a professor of classics and ancient Mediterranean studies at Bucknell University and Coderex, the Thebes Senegasia excavation project.

spk_0 Stephanie, thank you so much for joining me today. Now, the sacred band of Thebes are an elite troop consisting of 150 pairs of male lovers, and were formed in the fourth century BC. Can you tell me a little about what Thebian culture and society was like at that time?

spk_0 One thing I want to mention at the outset is that we don't know that much about the sacred band. We don't know that much about its composition, and so a lot of the sources that we have for this particular military group are much later.

spk_0 So in fact, the sources that mention Thebian military groups and the real importance of them are very difficult to assess. They date much later than the sacred band was supposed to have been formed.

spk_0 Our main source is Plutarch, and he was from the area, round thebes, he was from a town called Kyrona. So he was very pro-Theban, he was very, also he was elaborating in his histories.

spk_0 And he often dates to, well, he does date to the later part of the first century CE. So this is over 400 years after the events that he discusses.

spk_0 And so it'd be like you telling a story about something that happened 400 years ago. How much can we really trust you to tell the truth?

spk_0 And so in a way, the foundational underpinnings of the sacred band and our knowledge of them are extremely insecure.

spk_0 Well, should the question I should really be asking you then first office, did the sacred band of thebes really exist?

spk_0 Right, that's a good question. That's a very good question. I would say that the sacred band of thebes probably existed.

spk_0 I would say that the sacred band of thebes probably didn't exist in the way that we might like to imagine them existing because of later elaborations on their story and later use of the story of a homoerotic military people.

spk_0 The fascination that we might have even in today's times because we're actually much more repressed to sexual culture than the rest of culture was.

spk_0 And so we have maybe we have sort of become fascinated by this idea of men in the military who might be gay.

spk_0 But gay is not a word that we can use of ancient people at all because they didn't think of the world in sort of these dichotomies gay, not gay, gay, straight, etc.

spk_0 The sexuality of ancient Greece was on it sort of continuum.

spk_0 And there were there were men who had the gay relationships homosexual homo social relationships homosexual relationships and also heterosexual relationships.

spk_0 And so it's not a thing that we necessarily want to focus on too much. I mean in making that the only defining characteristic of the sacred band.

spk_0 In other words, the real thing to remember actually about the sacred band is that they were the first paid military force that we really know of from Biosha, which is the area around thebes, the sort of region of thebes.

spk_0 And because we know more about the sort of ad hoc military formations and antiquity and most soldiers in antiquity were citizen soldiers or farmers.

spk_0 And they were soldiers part of the time, but not all the time.

spk_0 And so the sacred band is a really interesting phenomenon because it's one of the first that we know of a sort of professional standing army that was trained and sort of housed in the city state, state itself.

spk_0 And paid for by the state. And so that they're professionals. We had mercenary soldiers to an antiquity, but they're not as they're not the same as kind of the sacred band.

spk_0 So that's one thing to remember about them. That's actually the most important Greek historical point about the sacred band. It's not the the homo social nature of the supposed nature of the sacred band.

spk_0 So let's go back to the very, very beginning of this conversation and and really set the scene. Where is thebes in the fourth century? And I know that that seems like such a silly question to ask, but what is the world like and where is where does thebes sit in it culturally and socially?

spk_0 The fourth century is a complicated century. The Peloponnesian war had just finished and Sparta had just defeated Athens in this long protracted war at the end of the fifth century.

spk_0 And after the defeat of Athens by Sparta and the allies in the Peloponnesian war that we find ourselves in this in this century where it seems to me like so many Greek city states are just constantly vying for power.

spk_0 There are various parts of this century. One is called the Corinthian war in the beginning of the century where Sparta is pitted against some of the allies, Athens and thebes ally together and Corinth and Argos and Persia even allies together against Sparta because they don't want Sparta to become too powerful.

spk_0 And so one of the things that you go into the themes of the fourth century is you have all these shifting alliances between city states in order to try to prevent one or the other from becoming more powerful either Athens or thebes or Sparta and all of these other tiny little places that are allying back and forth with them.

spk_0 So it's a very chaotic period. It's very complicated. There was a piece in the beginning of the fourth century called the Kings piece that Persia had sort of brokered between the Greek city states.

spk_0 And that was very dangerous for thebes if we're going to talk about thebes mostly because that piece called the Kings piece from the king of Persia declared that Persia would control all of what's now Turkey, Ionia and declared that all the other city states would become autonomous, which means you know they would be ruling themselves.

spk_0 They couldn't form leagues, they couldn't form alliances, they couldn't form coalitions with themselves and Sparta was supposed to be the guardian of this piece right and had the power to enforce the clauses of this piece.

spk_0 So Sparta was a little bit empowered at the beginning of the fourth century and Sparta went up to thebes and installed a garrison there, which was very detrimental to thebes and they exiled a bunch of people that were anti-spartan and they also killed a number of other people in thebes who were anti-spartan.

spk_0 So in the beginning of the fourth century everybody's kind of pretty exhausted Sparta has been put into this position of power if being the law enforcer for a Persian broker piece, which is interesting.

spk_0 And all of these exiles from thebes go down to Athens and they sort of decide to foment revolt. One of them is the famous Boyatar which is the head the ocean, one of the head the ocean figures named Palapitas.

spk_0 And he goes down Athens and he comes back a few years later and basically liberates the city from Athens.

spk_0 They install a democracy which is not something that Thebes is known for, usually Thebes is kind of an oligarchic government, but they install maybe a democracy.

spk_0 And then for the next few decades Thebes tries to become more powerful and it essentially does do this pretty successfully.

spk_0 It goes down into the Peloponnes, it has a bunch of military campaigns which we can talk about in a minute.

spk_0 It goes up to Thessaly which is north of Thebes, a region north of Thebes and tries to sort of ally itself with a coalition of the salient cities.

spk_0 But really in this time you've got just these city states buying for power. Thebes is becoming more preeminent than it has in the historical period, but it's very short lived.

spk_0 Can you give me a bit of background into how the sacred band of Thebes came performed because you're describing this really warlike, exciting, shifting sands kind of a place.

spk_0 How do people decide that they need to have professional soldiers?

spk_0 The traditionally the date of the sacred band is in the early fourth century, like 379, 378.

spk_0 And this is right, right after the Spartans, Garrison is kicked out.

spk_0 So perhaps that Thebes thought they needed to protect their citadel, right, and they needed to have a standing army for that.

spk_0 So this is a very disruptive time. It's probably a dangerous time for them.

spk_0 We do have evidence that from earlier historians before 379 that there were some sort of select Thebes.

spk_0 There were 300 Thebes at the Battle of Latia in 479 against the Persians.

spk_0 And so there are there are indications that there may have been a group of 300 kind of soldiers before the early fourth century, but they're never called the sacred band.

spk_0 At that point, most of the sources don't even in fact use the name sacred band.

spk_0 How does the name of the sacred band come about?

spk_0 Sometimes they're known as the city band in one source, but the sacred band may have something to do with the fact that is recorded again in this late source Plutarch that in Thebes lovers, male lovers and their younger lovers, they would go to a sacred shrine of Yolau,

spk_0 who was a character from mythology, who was from Thebes. He was the nephew of Heracles, who was also from Thebes in mythology.

spk_0 And Heracles in Yolau, you allow us used to hang out together.

spk_0 And it was reported by later sources that they were lovers, although they are actually also related.

spk_0 But that's kind of interesting because Thebes has a lot of incestual mythology in the city.

spk_0 But anyway, so the lovers of Thebes used to go according to these late sources down to the sanctuary and basically swear their fidelity to the other or make sort of a pledge to each other, pledging some sort of love in your relationship.

spk_0 It's not really love either.

spk_0 I was going to ask you about this because when we say lovers and sexuality, we really we understand that in very controlled terms.

spk_0 So in ancient Greece as a whole, especially in the 6th century BC and the 5th century BC and more also into the 4th century.

spk_0 And we're not sure how long this lasted.

spk_0 There was basically a pederastic male relationships that were considered to be normal and expected between an older man and a younger boy.

spk_0 Not too young. So the younger boy is about, well, possibly verging on the age of going into the military.

spk_0 So mid teens to late teens. So possibly 17, 18, etc.

spk_0 15 maybe. I mean, it depends. We're not really sure in every city state.

spk_0 Like I said, it's a little bit different. And the older man is already established in the aristocratic families.

spk_0 He's already established as a soldier. He's already established possibly as a political force in the city state.

spk_0 And he is basically going to be the mentor to this younger man.

spk_0 And they're known by the Greek terms, a Romano, which means the beloved one and the arostes, which means the lover, the one who does the loving.

spk_0 And this relationship was really important for the young boy who comes from an also an aristocratic family.

spk_0 This is very class specific. If you can talk about class in each crease anyway.

spk_0 And so this, this relationship is very important for this boy because this, this relationship brings connections between the two families and between a sort of a networking experience for this young boy.

spk_0 And in this relationship, it is partly sexual. And there is definitely touching. We have lots of literary sources for this with lots of vase paintings that show this actually.

spk_0 But it's not just about sex. It's about also teaching about philosophy, teaching about politics, teaching possibly even about music and poetry, especially, and that kind of thing.

spk_0 So it's very much part of the sexual continuum of ancient Greece. And the men in these relationships wouldn't have called themselves gay or homosexual.

spk_0 Because they were also expected at to be the older ones were expected to get married and have children and to have, you know, heterosexual relationships as well.

spk_0 And usually there was an endpoint to these relationships. So this was a, this was a gift in the way to the young boy in terms of his education.

spk_0 And as soon as he got old enough that that relationship would be finished, they would be considered to be old lovers.

spk_0 But it's very interesting for us to think about these kinds of relationships that are so different from what we would call normal.

spk_0 And in fact, we would call this relationship in our modern societies mostly peterastic and horrified by this. But it was totally considered to be normal.

spk_0 I'm an expert on Victorian sexuality and I know how hard just in the 19th century we have to work to try and get people to understand that sex, sexual ideas and attitudes shift and change and aren't bound by the boundaries that we put them in today, especially when we're looking back in their past.

spk_0 But what fascinates me about your period about this period in the ancient world is we really struggle to really grasp what's happening at this time and historians ourselves can get quite touchy about how this area is displayed.

spk_0 Because if we talk about peterastic, there's an instant connection for a lot of people to pedophilia and the idea that this, this sexual relationship is something that is morally abhorrent to us in a modern world.

spk_0 Do you think that's possibly why some historians have averaged far more on the idea that these relationships are somehow noble because they believe there was no touching or no sexual.

spk_0 No sexual contact and that actually the reality as you've said from the vases from everything else shows us that there was and we just have to understand that the past is a very different place.

spk_0 Oh, absolutely the past as it's been said by various historians, ancient historians and anthropologists of foreign country.

spk_0 And we have since the Victorian period, especially sort of extolled the ancient Greeks as being these noble, amazing philosophers, which is kind of sitting around thinking about all these wonderful thoughts about excellence and beauty and virtue.

spk_0 Well, in fact, they were just regular people and they also had different roles and different rules for their sexualities.

spk_0 And so, so, so yeah, we really have to understand that the world was a very different place than and their cultural rules were very different than ours.

spk_0 I would hate to, I would hate to think of the idea of someone thinking that it was pedophilia.

spk_0 I mean, that is a Greek word, the love of the boy, the love of the child, but it was peterastic in a sense of institutionalized education.

spk_0 So the focus wasn't only on the sexuality, that's the thing and that's I think one of the legacies of the Victorian period is that we are obsessed with the idea of any sort of sexuality that still deviates from what some people consider to be norm.

spk_0 One of the former scholars who's written most on the sacred band is David Lattello from the San Francisco State University.

spk_0 And he's actually argued that it would make no sense to have an aromanois arastase relationship, a beloved and a lover relationship involved in the same military unit.

spk_0 Because from an age perspective, at a 17 or 18 year old person, 20 year old person, and a 30 or early 30s person, this doesn't make sense from a military standpoint.

spk_0 Well, so, so has this come about basically what's happened is we know that in or at least sources tell us in the Indian culture that the part of the education system of young men was that they would form this connection that was both sexual and educational with an older man in their life.

spk_0 And also then that thebes had a band of warriors who were professional, who were incredibly successful at some points, and that throughout the centuries and throughout people's excitement and interest in history, those two worlds have just become mashed together.

spk_0 And so the idea that the sacred band of thebes were a pairs of gay lovers doesn't actually have any basis in history at all.

spk_0 It doesn't have much that's true. Now, one of the things David Latio has suggested is they could be former lovers, former pairs or fair pairs of former lovers, which would make a lot more sense.

spk_0 They would still have a bond together. They would still be very close together and ancient Greek sources from elsewhere talk about the bond that an older lover and a young beloved had for the for the life, but it wasn't considered to be a sexual bond anymore after that original sort of institutionalized.

spk_0 institutionalized educational period was over. And so I think we could see the sacred band as pairs of lovers, but possibly as Latio suggests pairs of former lovers. And that makes a lot of sense.

spk_0 And if we think about also the friendships that people who fight with each other have, it might be more useful for us to think about that kind of relationship as well, grafted on to the former lover category.

spk_0 So these men now are progressing on in their lives and their military lives, and they are fighting with each other side by side. And when you do that, you develop the band of brothers kinds of mentality, which is very well documented in psychological literature and military literature from contemporary times all the way back.

spk_0 So you can think of these people as being very close as elite core often are anyway, you know, think of the Marines, the band of Marines that goes to war together or any other elite core from any other country, you know, they come back and those are their people, you know, those are their family, they will not do anything to to betray them, they will always support them.

spk_0 And so I think it might be more useful to think about the sacred band in this way as a sacred core of very elite warriors who had previous relationships, but are now fighting together and they're from the same city. So they also have the same sort of civic identity.

spk_0 Is the notion of the sacred band being made up of pairs of old lovers or current lovers or men who have incredibly tightly bonded? Is this something that is commented on by other Greek cities or by other people looking at the ebes at this time?

spk_0 Is it something that the the de Sina's unusual or is it is it common is is we're talking about the ebes is a very specific city state here, but is this notion of bonding and male education and male sexuality one that's shared across ancient Greece at this time?

spk_0 I think it's shared across ancient Greece absolutely. And for example, but as you talk about the sources, the military historian Xenophon, who is the closest source in time to the even military affairs of the four central Spartan military cars and everything, he he does not say anything specific about an erotic, even though he devotes tons of information and pages to the activity of the even military during this fourth century time.

spk_0 So he was a very specific person from three seventy five to three sixty two. Now you could say that that's maybe because he thought he wanted to.

spk_0 He was an anti-th even he was pro Spartan, but there are other pro-th even sources that don't mention the sacred band either as an erotic band.

spk_0 So it doesn't seem to be a thing that was really truly an obsession with any writer at this time and the fact that you know, petrastic relationship strips were kind of expected and common in aristocratic circles across ancient Greek city states leads me to believe that it really wasn't a big deal.

spk_0 And the later sources that mentioned the erotic nature of the sacred band are kind of utopian sources and their Luteo has argued this they're they're talking about the relationship between lovers and the support of democracy and lovers and fighting against tyranny.

spk_0 There's a famous story from Athenian history in which the two lovers, hermodean hermodeus and aristogaiton actually kill one of the old kings in early Athenian history.

spk_0 And so they were supposedly lovers and so there's a lot of situating in in in literature of homo social men fighting against tyranny and so it becomes a trope it becomes a theme of literature and not necessarily reflection of reality.

spk_0 How did the sacred band come to an end and why don't we still have them today?

spk_0 The sacred band fought in a number of battles in the fourth century that we know of in which themes in the ocean in general became really quite prominent.

spk_0 They call it the Theban hegemony hegemony is a little bit of an overused term that theban hegemony lasted only nine years according to the major historical periods but whatever.

spk_0 And after they had established this sort of decade of power in Greece, they had to reckon on the ground with the power of Macedon under Philip II who was Alexander the Great's father.

spk_0 And he had been gaining power in the last part of the fourth century and he had been solving some problems for major Greek city states that had always been fighting with each other since the end of the felt the war and so he was gathering allies and people knew that he was very powerful and so they were they were allying themselves with him.

spk_0 But he he he came down to central Greece because some of his friends that he had just made some of his allies appealed to him because they were sparring with the Theban over some territories in central Greece and so Philip uses this this appeal as an excuse to come down into central Greece and he finds the army of the allies including thebes and the sacred band waiting for him at a place called Kyronia.

spk_0 And Kyronia is a really really amazing place because it's a it's a valley essentially it's a big broad valley of about three miles across and it's like the past into southern Greece the central part of southern Greece and so he this is where they have to stand in order to prevent them from coming it's sort of like thermopoly was to to the Greeks in the Persian wars.

spk_0 And so per Philip comes down he's got 30,000 infantry he's a huge force he's got a lot of cavalry as well. He also has a different kind of weaponry he has a very long spear called the Sarissa which is twice as long as the normal Greek hop light spear so that's very damaging.

spk_0 And so they basically fight together with the Theban's and their allies and Philip is on the right fighting the Athenians who are allied with thebes at the time and he sets his son Alexander who's later to become Alexander the great on the left and they fight the so called sacred band on the left and Philip fains are withdrawal and so the Athenians kind of follow him and then the cavalry sort of attacks the sacred band on the other side.

spk_0 And supposedly this is where the sacred band is annihilated by Alexander the great and his fellow general.

spk_0 We have some really interesting evidence for this just that just was published this year and I'd like to mention Mariah Liston who's a very good osteologist she has gone.

spk_0 We work with her at our excavation and thebes to and she's looking at our skeletons because we have a cemetery above the temple anyway she's doing all of our work here on our on our skeleton skeleton material but she has recently published in fact I think it's just just out maybe for a month.

spk_0 The skeletal material that was saved from the battle of Kyrona in 338 on the original excavators I believe it was I can't remember what year in the early 19th century they excavated the burial site of supposedly the Theban burials and they saved some of the bone material they just they unfortunately through away a lot of it but they saved what they thought was the most impressive bone material from that.

spk_0 And they found seven rows of 254 skeletons very well known that's marked today with the line of Kyrona you may have seen pictures of this and Mariah Liston has analyzed these heads cranium mostly and leg pieces and she's found some really cool things these these damage was very traumatic to the cranium of these people she's analyzed a lot of different heads all of them have all but one have blunt force trauma.

spk_0 In the sort of I'm around death there's blows to the faces with objects like rims of shields you can identify cuts through actual cranium with long straight heavy blades like swords so there's this one particular cranium of a Theban that has actually been slashed from the frontal bone on the near the hairline and go on hit one all the way back down through the head behind the eyes

spk_0 to the nose to the top of the jaw and removed the the whole brain case in the upper face so this guy was kind of like defaced completely and he would have wow I know and it's just been published and the picture is amazing it's on the cover of a book the book is called it's a it's a collection of new approaches to ancient to Greek and Roman warfare new approaches to Greek and Roman warfare from 2020 it's edited by a man named Lee Bryce who's an American military historian anyway so that's where this

spk_0 article appears and that that head of that person that was defaced with the sword is on the cover of that of that volume but the most interesting part of this is not the gore and all that kind of stuff but the most interesting part of this is that Mariah has shown that these these people were actually attacked from above and so this proves I think without a doubt really that what the ancient sources said was true that Alexander the great

spk_0 basically with his cavalry attacked the hot plate failings of the sacred band or the thievens whichever however you want to call them and so they are being all attacked from the top all of the skull injuries are shown to be attacks from the top or if if they weren't on the horses of Alexander wasn't on the horses then the thievens were actually on their knees

spk_0 and so there all of these injuries are coming from the top which is fascinating anyway so this is brand new newly published evidence that the sacred band was really decimated like the ancient sources do say at the battle of Kyronea with Philip II in charge and they were all buried there.

spk_0 So if the if the sacred band ends then or we around that time what happens to thievens next and and also what happens to Greek sexuality I mean is the the idea of these sacred lovers is it one that continues into later Greek life or does it fade at the same time.

spk_0 Well I don't think it has a relationship per se to the sacred band and the destruction of the sacred band I would say that Greek sexuality is always going to be more open and free ancient Greek sexuality then then ours is for sure but the idea of a petarastic aristocratic relationship does not last much further on in Greek history it's a lot different later and so you want to think about this ancient petarastic relationship of happening in the sort of the

spk_0 six to fifth mid to late fourth century and then really things change and the whole Greek world is put up up heevil after Alexander things get crazy and chaotic and there's a lot of cosmopolitanism as well in this part of the world by this time so the old way of Greek aristocratic petarastic is on the way.

spk_0 I would have to say but that isn't to say that it is replaced by something that resembles the kinds of obsessive sort of strict sexualities that many people in modern culture think are the right ways of course Alexander himself I think was reputed and known to have male lovers and Alexander then with thieves he comes down later and he uses themes as an example the archaeological evidence doesn't really suggest that he raised it to the ground at that point but we did like I said we don't have a systematic excavation of all of thieves and so I think it's a very important thing to do is to take a look at the

spk_0 and so after the use was destroyed by Alexander I'm never really regained any of its historical power until the middle of middle ages it became a much more economic and powerful force again a thousand years later.

spk_0 Stephanie raises some fantastic points about whether the relationships between men and the sacred band of thieves can be understood within our limited definitions of sexuality today

spk_0 and it's both tantalizing and frustrating to hear that so much archaeological evidence lies hidden under modern thieves now.

spk_0 Who knows what glorious vines are still to come and just how much evidence of the sacred band could be lying there waiting for us.

spk_0 But even if these elite warriors aren't with us today their legacy has not been forgotten.

spk_0 The name the sacred band was revived by Greece for the first organized military resistance to the Ottoman Empire during the Greek War of Independence in 1821.

spk_0 Greece had been under Turkish rule since the 15th century and their fight for independence drew interest and support from the three great powers Britain, Russia and France even Lord Byron bringing with him huge amounts of money arrived in Greece hoping to aid the cause.

spk_0 He died there in 1824 six years before the war ended.

spk_0 So perhaps what we should be asking ourselves about the sacred band of thieves is not just questions around how our attitudes to sexuality have changed over time but also how long our memories are.

spk_0 Because while ancient Greece might seem like a very foreign country the idea of a standing army to protect your liberties and your values is one we have never been able to be without.

spk_0 Even today thousands of years later human society has not moved on from its war like and destructive nature and how bizarre is it that in comparison to today where gay men and our gay youth still risk death and violence in their modern societies just for existing in the ancient Greek world to be attracted to another consenting man was not unusual or hidden but celebrated.

spk_0 As always it seems the past has a lot to teach us.

spk_0 So that's it for our last episode of this series of not what you thought you knew sponsored by Ancestry.

spk_0 What has been your favorite episode of this series I really want to know.

spk_0 Drop it in a review on your podcast app or share it on social media using the hashtag not what you thought.

spk_0 And head to skyhistory.co.uk to find out more info on all of our episodes including heaps of historical articles competitions and the latest on sky histories TV shows.

spk_0 And finally a big thank you to my guests Professor James Davidson and Professor Stephanie Larsen.

spk_0 This episode of not what you thought you knew was hosted by me Dr Fernard L produced by Kim Sergeant and Pete Ross with research by Mary and Z and our series producer is Sam Pearson.

spk_0 History's letters of love in World War II reveals a remarkable account of the second world war through a series of real life love letters.

spk_0 Featuring interviews with their family and story me Johnny Pitt and me Amy not all this eight part podcast series tells the brave, tenacious and touching story of Cyril and Olga's war.

spk_0 We found a place to park our tanks climbed out just going to start a fight to make a meal when bang, one shell dropped about 20 yards one side of the tank another about the same the other side.

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The Sacred Band of Thebes

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