Around 380 B.C., during Plato's once again philosophical dialogue, a group of Athenian nobles sat around a banquet to discuss a topic of great importance to the Greeks: love. Each guest gave a speech in praise of the God of Love and provided their own understanding of love. One of the guests, Fidelro, lyrically expressed the lover's loyalty to the loved one. He cites as evidence the mythical hero Achilles, who sacrificed himself in the Trojan War for his beloved Patroclus. He speculated on the bravery these soldiers might have shown on the battlefield:
If an army of lovers is formed, these people fight side by side, although in small numbers, but they can defeat almost all of humanity. Because the man in love has endless potential and often prefers to die for the person he loves.
At that time, many Greek countries were dominated by spartan hegemony, and the Spartans, who defeated the Athenians in the devastating Peloponnesian War, were enjoying the joy of ruling Athens. But Thebes, one of the Athenian city-states, withstood the test of Spartan military might. The Thebans realized Fidero's vision: they created an elite legion of 300 soldiers, known as the Holy Army of Thebes, made up of 150 pairs of male lovers who fought side by side in the name of freedom.
A Spartan army occupied the Castle of Thebes, suppressed opposition and exiled dissidents. The Theban exile Pelopidas staged a coup d'état to liberate the city from the Spartans and establish a democratic system there. The Thebans knew they needed to protect themselves from Spartan reprisals.
Thus, the Holy Army of Thebes was formed. The legion was the first state-funded professional standing army in Greek history; most of Greece's army consisted of part-time citizen soldiers. The Thebans considered the emotional bond between men to be "sacred," referring to the sacred vows that the male lovers of Thebes made to each other in the temple of the mythical lover of hero Hercules, Iolaus. These emotional bonds make the Legion a force to be reckoned with. The legion eventually defeated spartan-led alliances, opening up a decade of the Thebes' hegemony.
Elite teams of male lovers are unique in Greek history, but homosexual relationships are commonplace. In many cities, elite teenage men have romantic relationships with older men as a form of rite of passage. The relationship may be sexual, but it is also educational. In addition to physical intimacy, the elderly mentor young people in philosophical, political and poetic areas. According to Plato, Athens and Sparta practiced homosexual relations to varying degrees, and their status was somewhat "complicated." In Thebes, this relationship is actively encouraged and even protected by law. The Thebans were the first to exploit this magical power in practice.
In the following decade after the coup, the Holy Army confronted the Spartans head-on and drove the Spartan garrison out of the city of Viotia. After many skirmishes, it finally culminated in the Battle of Lyuctra in 371 BC. When the peace talks failed, the Theban army faced a worrisome situation with a clear numerical superiority over the Spartan army. General Ibaminonda, the leader of the city of Thebes, made an unconventional decision by placing the most powerful forces, especially the Holy Army of Thebes led by Pelopidas, on the left flank against the most powerful forces in Sparta. Due to its small size and strong cohesion, the Holy Army of Thebes rushed towards the Spartans like cannonballs, and the thief first captured the king and killed the Spartan generals. The Spartan army saw this and fled. This devastating defeat marked the first time in three centuries that the Spartan army had been defeated. The military strength was greatly reduced, so that Sparta could no longer pose a threat to Thebes.
The victory in this battle changed the geopolitical landscape of Greece forever. All Greeks knew that the Spartans were not as powerful as they seemed and could be defeated. Dominoes began to collapse. A large number of city-states began to rebel against the Spartan-led Peloponnesian Alliance. Ignoring the Spartans, the Spartans built walls around their city, and Ibaminonda helped build fortifications in two cities near Sparta as powerful fortresses against it. In the case of Thebes, it has always been considered a second-rate power in Greece. But now it is the dominant force, playing an active role in many aspects of Greek affairs.
Even though the Thebans eventually lost control of the Greeks, the Theban Holy Army continued to fight heroically. Pelopidas happened to encounter a solar eclipse while fighting for the freedom of the Thessaly, and the soldiers were terrified, and he was killed in battle. Ibaminonda was killed while fighting an alliance now made up of Sparta, Athens, and other nations. Thebans thus lacked strong leadership, weakened the alliance, and intervened from outside forces: Philip II of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great.
In the last battle in Caronia in 338 BC, Philip's army of more than 30,000 men confronted the combined forces of the Greek states (Thebes, Athens, Corinth, and many others) totaling 35,000 men. The Greeks resisted, but eventually succumbed to Philip's superior tactics. The Holy Army of Thebes was destroyed by an elite Macedonian force led by young Alexander.
In the 40 years since its founding, the Holy Army led Thebes to many victories and upset the balance of power in Greece, but after the Battle of Caronia, it no longer existed. All three hundred of its members were slaughtered.
In the 19th century, mass graves of the Holy Army of Thebes were discovered in Caronia. The trauma to their bones showed that the death was extremely tragic. Some had been pierced deeply by Macedonian spears, and the blades were still inserted into them. One of them was hit in the head with a shield. Others have skull fractures and jaw fractures, among others. Apparently, Alexander's goal was to completely annihilate this legendary legion. But most notably, the way these skeletons are arranged. They were lined up in seven or eight, imitating the formation of a phalanx. Some of the corpses had their elbows joined together. The soldiers are dead, just as they are alive: as loyal lovers, there is a beginning and an end, and forever.
The Caronian Lion, the grave of 254 soldiers of the Holy Army of Thebes, who were killed in the Battle of Caronia with Philip II of Theolonia in Greek Caronian Macedonia in 338 BC.