How an army of gay couples became the most revered & feared fighters in ancient Greece.
If you happened to be at Pride celebrations this past weekend—especially in West Hollywood where audiences rushed the stage to see icon Kylie Minogue perform—you know first-hand just how mighty a horde of motivated gays can be.
As it turns out, some of the world’s greatest minds have recognized this powerful potential in a mass of passionate homosexuals, and have wielded it to change the course of history.
One such occasion was in ancient Greece—375 B.C., to be exact—when an army exclusively made up of gay couples bested the fearsome Spartan military forces, despite being greatly outnumbered. C’mon, lovebirds!
It’s all laid out in a fantastic new piece for Pride Month from The Washington Post: A few years prior, the city-state of Thebes was under Spartan rule when a group of Theban rebels staged a coup and re-claimed their home. Still, the threat remained, and the locals recognized they’d need an advanced military strategy if they were going to keep the Spartans at bay…
Enter a commander named Gorgidas with a brilliant idea: What could possibly be more capable of defending the city than a battalion of armed and fabulous men-loving men?
Honestly, the logic checks out. Here’s what philosopher Plato had to say about it in his Symposium, written around that same time:
“Even just a few such men, fighting side by side, could conquer practically the entire human race,” he theorized. “For surely the last person a lover could bear to see him abandoning his post or surrendering his weapons would be his boyfriend—he would sooner die many times over!”
Okay, tea.
