Theban's Sacred Band of Thebes

Sacred Band of Thebes, a battalion composed of 150 pairs of male lovers, maintained at state expense, who were station on the battlefield in couples, thus establishing a noble precedent for homosexual in the military.

This force created by Theban general Gorgidas in 378 BC. It was probably first formed as a guard for the city-state’s citadel. At first the Sacred Band did not distinguish itself in combat; possibly because Gorgidas placed it soldiers in the front ranks of the central Theban phalanx, where it was integrated with other soldiers.

 

This did not allow the special training of the Band to be demonstrated because other less talented soldiers diluted the Band’s strength.

Established after the liberation of Thebes from the Spartans, this battalion contributed to Thebes’ military prestige until its heroic end at Chaeronea in 338 BC. Apparently Gorgidas was killed in some skirmish shortly after he founded the band, for the next year its leadership passed to Pelopidas, the young Theban, who had led the exiles in there rebellion.

The scared Band achieved its reputation by defeating the premiere army of ancient Greece, the Spartans, but they could not match the new organization and tactics introduced by Philip, whose army, under his son Alexander, would conquer most of the known world.
Theban's Sacred Band of Thebes

Battle of Mantinea in 207 BC

Philopoemen, commander of Achaean League formed up the Acheans behind a trench with both flanks resting on hills. Nevertheless, the Spartans under the tyrant Machanidas moved in against them.

Sparta and the Achaean League came to grips at full strength each side sending out a full citizen levy as well as a big force of mercenaries.

A new instrument of war is said to have been employed here for the first time in a field: Machanidas had a number of catapults moved up in front of his phalanx, in order to fire on the enemy phalanx. To forestall this, Philopoemen started the battle by having the light cavalry or Tarentines, who were stationed in his left flank and other light armed mercenaries move forward.

In this battle, the Achaeans, allies of Macedonia, were victorious. The Battle of Mantinea this year was the most significant battle of the Frost Macedonia War, although it involved none of the main participants in that war.
Battle of Mantinea in 207 BC

Battle of Mantinea in 362 BC

In 420 BC during the Peloponnesian war, Mantinea joined and anti-Spartan alliance of Athens, Argos and Elis.

The battle of Mantinea brought something like peace and conclusion to the forty year period of confusion following the fall of the world order of 405 BC.

Thebes stood in the ascendant, Sparta on the decline and Athens in a useful and international flexible position.

In this battle, the Spartans faced the Boeotians and the Athenians the Arcadian auxiliaries and Eleans; the cavalry was stationed on the wings, that the Athenians facing that of the Thebans, which reinforced by an immense number of skirmish.

Mantinea troops fought on the Spartan side and shared in the Spartan defeat at the second Battle of Mantinea, where Theban commander Epaminondas was killed in his hour of victory.

In the end superior Spartan soldiering won the day as the Spartan right wheeled around and rolled out the enemy, who retreated under pressure.
Battle of Mantinea in 362 BC

Battle of Tanagra (457 BC)

Battle of Tanagra in 457 BC was a battle in the Megarid between the Athenians and Corinthians, and campaign of Lacedaemonians in Doris.

An Athenian army, 15,000 strong, under the conduct of Myronides, entered Boeotia to protect its independence and delivered battle at Tanagra in 457 BC. The two armies met at Tanagra in a battle marked by bloody slaughter on both sides.

Spartan warrior

Animated by this exhortation, they fought with so much valour that they all perished; but the Athenians lost the battle by the treachery of the Thessalian. This defeat, however, was repaired a few weeks afterwards, by a complete victory over the Thebans at Cenophytam in the plain of Tanagra.

There was great slaughter on both sides; but the Thessalian horsemen deserted during the combat, and the Lacedaemonians gained victory.

The Spartan won the day but quickly withdrew fighting through the Megarid, their ability to capitalize in the victory an early sign of vulnerability to casualties because of the chronic lack of citizen manpower at Sparta.

The victory was not sufficiently decisive to enable the Lacedaemonians to invade Attica; but it served to secure them an unmolested retreat, after partially ravaging the Megarid through the passes of the Geraneia.
Battle of Tanagra (457 BC)

Battle of Mantinea (418 BC)

Thucydides describes Battle of Mantinea as the greatest battle that had taken place for a very long time among Hellenic states.

In the years before this great battle, the Spartans under Brasidas, the most energetic and daring of Sparta’s warriors at the time, had actively campaigned in northern Greece in an attempt to widen Spartan dominance.

While at the same time, the confusion of Athenian domestic politics was reflected in an erratic foreign policy. In 420 BC, Alcibiades was elected general, and proceeded to make an alliance with Argos and other cities of the Peloponnese, directed against Sparta.

But the following year he was not reelected and the new Board of Generals refused to carry through the policy which Alcibiades had initiated. The result was that when the rival armies of the Spartans and Argives met in battle at Mantinea only a few Athenians hoplites were on hand to aid the Argives and their other allies.

In the Battle of Mantinea which was fought n June 418 BC the Spartan army probably had a total strength of some 7000 to 8000 men and was slightly stronger than the opposing Mantineans, Argives and Athenians.

The Athenian phalanx was in danger of being surrounded and destroyed after their allies broke and fled. According to Thucydides, they would have suffered more heavily than any other part of the army if they had not had their cavalry with them to help them.

The Spartans won the battle decisively, and restored much of their damaged reputation by the victory.
Battle of Mantinea (418 BC)

Greco-Persian war (480-479)

It is a second Persian invasion of Greece occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars. It was occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I, Great King of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece.

The invasion began in spring 480 BC, when the Persian army crossed the Hellespont with an army and navy of tremendous size, and marched through Thrace and Macedon to Thessaly, whose cities submitted to Xerxes.

The Persian advance was blocked at the pass of Thermopylae by small Allied force under King Leonidas I of Sparta; simultaneously, the Persian fleet was blocked by and Allied fleet at the straits of Artemisium.

The Spartans was overcome at the Battle of Thermopylae and the successful Persian push allowed their capture of Athens. The Persians burned Athens twice as well as several other Greek cities. The strategy of the Greek coalition paid off when they enticed the Persian fleet into battle at Salamis and crippled it badly enough to forestall further action at that time.

When the Persian navy was soundly defeated, Xerxes and the bulk of the Persian forces returned to the empire, leaving a portion in Greece.

Persian strategy as this point aimed at weakening the Greek coalition by offering peace terms to the Athenians. The Athenian refusal led ultimately to a confrontation at Plataea in 479 BC, in which the Persian commander was killed and the Persian routed.

After Greco-Persian Wars, Athens quickly became a military power, especially at sea. As a result of the Battle of Salamis Athens emerged with more prestige and the dominant naval power in Greece and the Aegean.
Greco-Persian war (480-479)

Battle of Coronea

The Battle of Coronea in 394 BC was a battle in the Corinthian War.

In this war Spartans and their allies under King Agesilaus defeated a force of Thebans and Argives that was attempting to block their march back into the Peloponnese. 

In 396 BC Agesilaus took 8000 troops to Asia Minor to protect the Spartan-allied Greek cities from the Persian attack.

He was recalled and began an overland through Thrace and Thessaly, he descended southward into hostile Boeotia.

Upon Agesilaus and his army’s entry into Boeotia on 14 August 394, he encountered a defending force of Thebans was waiting with its Boeotian allies and its contingent of Argives, Athenians and Corinthians.

The battle was fought on the plain of Coronea. Agesilaus had been joined by two units of Spartan and he had his neodamodeis, the mercenaries, the Greeks from Ionia and some additional troops recruited on the march and in Boeotia.

Wounded and with his army now too weak to occupy Boeotia, Agesilaus withdraw to Sparta.

Victory in a major battle of Coronea secured Agesilaus’ safe passage through Boeotia to Sparta, but it failed reestablish Spartan preeminence in central Greece. The victory failed to gain any strategic advantage.
Battle of Coronea

Battle of Leuctra

The Battle of Leuctra was one of the turning point in Greek history: the Spartans, who had been so dominant for two and half centuries in Greek politics to be reduced to the status of a secondrate power.

The Battle of Leuctra was a battle fought on July 6, 371 BC, between the Boeotians led by Thebans and the Spartans along with their allies amidst the post-Corinthian War conflict.

In 375 BC, Sparta and Athens, as well as the Persian king who needed mercenaries, arrange for a common peace that was immediately broken.

The alliance between Spartan and Athens posed a dilemma for Thebes and Sparta desired to dominate Thebes again as it had ten years earlier. At that time Sparta briefly occupied Thebes until a daring uprising in 379 restored Theban independence. Relations between the two states remained strained throughout the decade until 371. BC.

The Spartan King Cleombrotus gathered some Peloponnesian allies and marched on Thebes.

The Spartan army and allies outnumbered the Thebans and the Spartan soldier was famed for strength and fighting skills.

The Spartan army numbered 9000 hoplites and 1000 cavalry. The Theban forces consisted of 6000 hoplites and 1000 cavalry.

The only strength the Thebans maintained was a more disciplined cavalry. Theban commander Epaminondas introduced new idea and altered the usual tactical deployment of the phalanx by massing his strongest force on the left wing of his army directly across from the enemy’s strongest right wing.

Epaminondas also introduced another innovation, the employment of a reserve composed of elite.

The two armies of Spartan and Theban met on the plain of Leuctra, which was 1000 yards wide and bracketed by two small ridges upon which the two armies pitched their camp.

The battle was a Theban victory due to Epaminondas usage of new tactics. The defeat of the Spartan army made Epaminondas immediately famous. Epaminondas followed this victory in the next year by invading the Peloponnese and freeing Arcadia and Messenia from Spartan domination.
Battle of Leuctra