Sacred Band of Thebes

Didn't I see this in "The Mummy Returns" ?

Your thought process is how things like Trump happen.

Does the Sacred Band play anywhere else besides weddings, funerals, and baptisms ?

r2 You think 150 hot gay couples could work and fight together for years without imploding, then? Have you met any gay couples, by any chance?

[quote]I know this is sailing dangerously close to the old right-wing canard about the ineffectiveness of gay men

You got that right, you sound right-wing. Maybe you are projecting ?

#BeBest

#BeGay

There was no 'gay' back then. There were men who loved other men, period. There was no 'gay' sensibility. Men with homosexual inclinations didn't model their behavior on the Real Housewives. They fought in wars just like every other man did.

r5 Oh, come on!

Weren't those the days of Caligula?

[quote]There were men who loved other men, period.

And fucked other men. And lots of them. And got jealous of other men. And they had their own culture. And there was lots of effeminacy, too. Pretty much just as things are now, really. Only they didn't use the word "gay".

According to the wiki article:

[quote]Their regular training included wrestling and dance.

Dance!? As army training???

[quote]According to Plutarch, the 300 hand-picked men were chosen by Gorgidas purely for ability and merit, regardless of social class.[18] It was composed of 150 male couples

I don't understand this. If they were all chosen purely on merit and ability, was the fact they were all gay and all in relationships with each other purely coincidental? And if it wasn't, then they weren't just chosen on merit and ability.

History's fiercest warriors reincarnated.

"Squad! Camp... it... UP!"

[quote] There was no 'gay' sensibility. Men with homosexual inclinations didn't model their behavior on the Real Housewives. They fought in wars just like every other man did.

Gay men model their behavior to the Real Housewives ???

You must get yourself some new friends you big mary @ R7.

[quotr]—This. Never. Happened.

History. Says. Otherwise.

[quote]The historicity of the Sacred Band is largely accepted by historians; it is detailed in the writings of numerous classical authors, especially Plutarch.

"Largely" accepted, r16?

Unless you witnessed an event it is not beyond question.

However, most of us choose to believe things agreed upon by a consensus of historians and not live life as a contrarian cunt.

r18 I'm assuming most of these historians have never met any actual gay couples.

I want to see this as a series on Netflix.

Hopefully, most historians aren't stuck in stereotypes that are not relevant now, much less thousands of years ago.

r21 But stereotypes exist because those types are most common. Human behavior is human behavior. Anyone who thinks 300 horny gay men living in an exclusively gay community with each other are not going to fuck around with each other and cause untold emotional drama is living in a fantasy world.

Most of the ancient sources, especially Plutarch, were writing centuries after the Band was destroyed and we know precious little about the internal workings of Thebes anyway, like any ancient Greek city that wasn't Athens or Sparta. It is reasonable to think the Band existed, but beyond that historians can barely even speculate, so meagre are the scraps of information that survive.

So in other words, stereotypes are more informative than historians.

DL has hit a new low.

The OP is trying to stir the pot. He's stereotyping gay men as dishonorable and immature. It's impossible, he says, for us to behave otherwise. Hey OP, fuck you.

It does not strike me as a terribly promising military structure.

If the couple broke up, were they both ejected? Or did they have a chance to find new partners?

Just shows human behavior is limitless in its variations.

[quote]It does not strike me as a terribly promising military structure.

Exactly! It's an absurd idea and clearly one that wouldn't work. According to the legend, each couple was made up of a young gay man/teen and an eldergay. So half the army were young and horny and each of them surrounded by 299 other hot gay men. It's ridiculous.

r27 But it clearly isn't limitless, which is why the vast majority of the human population fall into very specific subsets and types.

You really are an idiot if you think attitudes and sensibilities were the same thousands of years ago. I'm surprised you're not positing who was most like Carrie, Samantha, the Golden Girls and whatever other cultural touchstone you buy into.

r29 I'm talking about biology, not "attitudes" or "sensibilities".

Perhaps infidelity was punishable by death? That might put a damper on things.

r31 That's possible, but surely recent history shows that even with the threat of very serious repercussions if discovered, gay men will still fuck like rabbits, given half a chance.

Yeah, I think you mean ALL men would fuck like rabbits. Straight guys are hamstrung by women.

I've never heard of such a thing.........A SACRED Band of Thieves?

Just in case you need a visual...

R22 = Russian/Deplorable troll

I'd like to know more. Did the Sacred Band continue for generations, or did it last for a few years, or the reign of one monarch?

Because yeah, not only would relationship problems and breakups interfere with the sacred bonds of the Sacred Band, but in ancient Greece intergeneration relationships were meant to be temporary. It was considered unseemly for a boy to keep his older lover once he was old enough to grow a beard, or for a man to have a boy lover over the age of 20. Because yeah, in those days, relationships between men of equal age and status were considered perverse, while men and boys was okay. Go figure.

Did they ever have any tunes on the Billboard Top 100 ?

They were really into playing the organ.

Butch soldiers lickin ,fuckin and kickin ass. Never heard of such a thang.

[quote] [R27] But it clearly isn't limitless, which is why the vast majority of the human population fall into very specific subsets and types.

R28 That makes no sense. Categorization follows to help us make sense of the varieties of behavior. It does not determine behavior. Though it does influence it. And that is what we call culture.

R37, read the wikipedia article for a start, it's pretty comprehensive as far as the sources go.

Luckily for the world, OP, what you buy doesn't matter.

Nor does what you think.

Historians and scientists can prove many times over that it really happened, especially with their graves, markers and historical accounts still surviving.

The world really was A LOT LESS HOMOPHOBIC before the Christians and Muslims brainwashed it.

The existence of the Sacred Band does disprove the idea that "there was no gay identity in the ancient world". To join such a group a man would have to be extremely serious about his relationship with another man, to be committed to that person till death did you part, or your boyfriend grew a beard. If that's not identifying as loving the same sex, what was?

Of course what didn't exist or barely existed in the ancient world, was men who lived exclusively homosexual lives. Men were expected to marry women and father children, and having homosexual leanings didn't get you out of your obligation to your family and posterity.

[quote]Historians and scientists can prove many times over that it really happened

Except they can't. According to one of wikipedia's basement dwellers, historians "largely agree" that it happened. Which is a useless statement and typical of wiki. But as was pointed out upthread, the sources those historians rely upon were writing decades and centuries after the Sacred Band of Thebes apparently disintegrated.

It seems to me you have on the one hand people who want or even need to believe in this, whatever reason, and therefore accept all this unquestioningly. And then you have those of us who have a little experience of gay men, male sexuality and exclusively gay groups, added to a modicum of intelligence and common sense, who realize that it's all fucking ridiculous.

Had never heard of these Thebes. Very interesting!

It's "fucking ridiculous" if you have no ability to stretch your mind beyond the world of the Kardashians, where OP so clearly lives.

r47 I've no problem "stretching my mind" to envisage something so clearly unlikely that it can only exist in the mind. That's rather my point.

Where is Thebes? I'm planning my summer vacation and would love to go there. What are the best restaurants? Will I have to walk much or do they have an all day bus pass?

The larger point that is important is that sexual relationships between males was fairly common in Ancient Greece, yet every pop culture depiction of Ancient Greece completely ignores that fact.

Good question r49. I was so confused about Ancient Thebes until I realized there were TWO different Thebes. The ancient capital of Egypt is now called Luxor. Definitely worth a visit. The one in Greece is not a tourist hot spot.