By Cameron Scheetz June 3, 2024 (queerty.com)
If you happened to be at Pride celebrations this past weekend—especially in West Hollywood where audiences rushed the stage to see icon Kylie Minogue perform—you know first-hand just how mighty a horde of motivated gays can be.
As it turns out, some of the world’s greatest minds have recognized this powerful potential in a mass of passionate homosexuals, and have wielded it to change the course of history.
One such occasion was in ancient Greece—375 B.C., to be exact—when an army exclusively made up of gay couples bested the fearsome Spartan military forces, despite being greatly outnumbered. C’mon, lovebirds!
It’s all laid out in a fantastic new piece for Pride Month from The Washington Post: A few years prior, the city-state of Thebes was under Spartan rule when a group of Theban rebels staged a coup and re-claimed their home. Still, the threat remained, and the locals recognized they’d need an advanced military strategy if they were going to keep the Spartans at bay…
Enter a commander named Gorgidas with a brilliant idea: What could possibly be more capable of defending the city than a battalion of armed and fabulous men-loving men?
Honestly, the logic checks out. Here’s what philosopher Plato had to say about it in his Symposium, written around that same time:
“Even just a few such men, fighting side by side, could conquer practically the entire human race,” he theorized. “For surely the last person a lover could bear to see him abandoning his post or surrendering his weapons would be his boyfriend—he would sooner die many times over!”
Okay, tea.
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These guys served it ancient city style.
So, Gorgidas recruited 150 male couples, trained them in martial combat, and readied them for battle, dubbing them The Sacred Band Of Thebes (because of course they had to have a dramatic name like that).
Interestingly, the ability to build up an all-gay army was an asset unique to Thebes. Though it’s well-known that ancient Greek society was pretty chill about homosexuality, the WaPo piece explains that it was a bit more complicated than that.
Yes, romantic relationships between men were widely accepted back then, though usually in the form adults who “mentored” teenaged boys through maturity. In actuality, once the younger partner’s beard grew in, it was considered taboo for their relationship to continue, and they were expected to marry women and start a family of their own.
However, that was not the case in Thebes, one of the few city-states to welcome same-sex relationships well into adulthood. There was even a tradition for male couples to pledge their unyielding faithfulness to one another at the foot of the city’s shrine to Iolaus, young lover to legendary hero Heracles.
Built on a rock-solid foundation of erotic male love, The Sacred Band Of Thebes was not to be messed with. With the backing of the city government, this unit of 300 gay men became Greece’s “first professional standing army,” ready to defend their home at a moment’s notice.
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Which brings us back to the Spartans, who made frequent attacks on Thebes, only to be scared off or defeated by the city-state’s highly strategized homosexual forces, fueled by their love for one another. No, that group of oiled up gay men marching toward you hand-in-hand isn’t a Pride parade—it’s the formidable Sacred Band!
It was The Battle Of Tegyra in 375 B.C. that the Thebans initially proved such a force that the Spartans fled from battle for the first time ever. But, a few years later, The Battle of Leuctra was where the Sacred Band marked such a decisive victory over the Spartans—even claiming the life of their ruler King Cleombrotus—that they changed the course of history as we know it.
As a result of such a dramatic loss, Sparta’s reputation was ruined—their army lost most of their allies and their standing as the most powerful force in Greece. For the next century, Thebes reigned as the country’s most commanding military force. And it was all because of a group of gays in love.
P.s. there’s also a great segment on the Sacred Band from Discovery+’s The Book Of Queer series, which you can check out below:
Unfortunately, this chapter of history doesn’t have the happiest ending for the gays. The dominance of the Sacred Band came to an end in Chaeronea at the hands of Alexander The Great, whose skilled army conquered Thebes in 338 B.C. As we now know, Alexander “The Bisexual” was fond of male lovers himself, so this was a sad case of LGBTQ+ community infighting.
Still, it’s pretty wild to learn that, for a while there, the world’s most feared and revered army was made up gays who fought side-by-side with their partners. It brings a whole new meaning to “love conquers all,” doesn’t it?
As the WaPo piece details, centuries later when the Chaeronean battleground was excavated, the remains of many of the Sacred Band’s soldiers were uncovered—among them, many pairs of skeletons were found linked arm-and-arm. An everlasting symbol of queer love standing the test of time!
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