strength of their affection for
others, and from feeling shame at showing themselves cowards before
them. Nor is this to be wondered at, seeing that men stand more in awe
of the objects of their love when they are absent than they do of
others when present, as was the case with that man who begged and
entreated one of the enemy to stab him in the breast as he lay
wounded, "in order," said he, "that my friend may not see me lying
dead with a wound in the back, and be ashamed of me." And Iolaus, the
favourite of Herakles, is said to have taken part in his labours and
to have accompanied him; and Aristotle says that even in his own time
lovers would make their vows at the tomb of Iolaus.

It is probable, therefore, that the Sacred Band was so named, because
Plato also speaks of a lover as a friend inspired from Heaven. Up to
the battle of Chaeronea it is said to have continued invincible, and
when Philip stood after the battle viewing the slain, in that part of
the field where the Three Hundred lay dead in their armour, heaped
upon one another, having met the spears of his phalanx face to face,
he wondered at the sight, and learning that it was the Band of Lovers,
burst into tears, and said, "Perish those who suspect those men of
doing or enduring anything base."

XIX. As to these intimacies between friends, it was not, as the poets
say, the disaster of Laius which first introduced the custom into
Thebes, but their lawgivers, wishing to soften and improve the natural
violence and ferocity of their passions, used music largely in their
education, both in sport and earnest, giving the flute especial
honour, and by mixing the youth together in the palaestra, produced
many glorious examples of mutual affection. Rightly too did they
establish in their city that goddess who is said to be the daughter of
Ares and Aphrodite, Harmonia; since, wherever warlike power is duly
blended with eloquence and refinement, there all things tend to the
formation of a harmonious and perfect commonwealth.

Now, as to the Sacred Band, Gorgidas originally placed them in the
first rank, and so spread them all along the first line of battle, and
did not by this means render their valour so conspicuous, nor did he
use them in a mass for any attack, but their courage was weakened by
so large an infusion of inferior soldiery; but Pelopidas, after the
splendid display of their valour under his own eye at Tegyra, never
separated or scattered them, but