The Victorious Gay Greek Army That Got Canceled by History
Why do we see so many football and rugby teams named for the Spartans, and only one for the Thebans, though Thebes in fact defeated Sparta in battle and ended its reign as superpower of Greece? The explanation lies deep in the prejudices of ancient Greek historians and thinkers, as does the inspiration for that one exception: The Caledonian Thebans, Scottish ruggers who define themselves as gay, bisexual, or LGBTQ-inclusive.
Let’s start by noting that Greek Thebes (not to be confused with the Egyptian city of the same name) had unusually gay-friendly laws and social customs. Plato, who examined male love relationships in his dialogue Symposium, singled out Thebes and one other city, Elis, as places where such bonds were natural and normal, whereas, in his native Athens, they were more “complicated.”
The Thebans drew on this normative view of male love in 378 BC by training male couples as infantry soldiers and stationing them together in battle. One hundred and fifty such couples formed a powerful regiment, the Sacred Band, that led Thebes to victories over the dreaded Spartans. One of those victories, at Leuctra in 371 BC, destroyed as much as a third of Sparta’s military manpower and ended its long supremacy.