Hello and welcome to another ancient warfare answers podcast.

I am Jasper Orthaus.

I'm the editor of Ancient Warfare Magazine.

And with me is Murray Dam.

He's the assistant editor.

And we're going to talk today about the Theban band.

Specifically, as somebody has asked us, was the Theban band trained to target officers?

Murray, can you help us out there?

Well, yes, and I don't want to start by saying no, but the Theban Sacred Band, of course,

were the Elite 300 of the Theban, the revived Theban hegemony, which sort of comes about after they expel

the Spartan garrison in 378, and then of course they become monumental part of the Theban

success at the Battle of Luxtra, especially, and at the Battle of Mantonea, which is their sort of supremacy

over the Spartans and 371 for Luctra and 362 for Mantonea. And then, of course, they are

destroyed to a man by the Macedonians at the Battle of Chironia in 338 BC. So they've got a remarkably

concise military history from...

Cortailed, I think.

Cirtailed, yes.

378 to 338, basically.

And there are, of course, other aspects of them which have got scholars hot under the collar,

mainly that they were supposedly comprised of 150 pairs of homosexual lovers,

and that they therefore were able to defeat any foe on the battlefield.

There are other aspects to them which comes to this question,

...