It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Sunday, June 20, 2021
B.C. to begin DRIPA-based negotiations with Tahltan First Nation on two northwest mining projects
The province of B.C is set to negotiate its first consent-based decision making agreement based on Section 7 of the Declaration of the Rights Of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) with Tahltan First Nation.
The province is holding talks with the Tahltan Central Government (TCG) – the political arm of the Tahltan First Nation – mining companies and stakeholders to reach an agreement related to environmental assessment approvals for two mining projects in Tahltan Territory.
These include the expansion of the Red Chris copper and gold mine located 80 kilometres south of Dease Lake and operated by Australian company Newcrest Red Chris Mining Ltd., and the Eskay Creek Mine operated by Skeena Resources Ltd.
The Tahltan Nation is also an investor in Skeena Resources and has developed a strong relationship with Newcrest Red Chris Mining Ltd. Both projects represent up to $3.3 billion in potential investment.
The Red Chris JV (Newcrest Red Chris Mining Ltd.) and Eskay Creek Revitalization Project (Skeena Resources) mining projects in the core Territory of the Tahltan Nation represent up to $3.3 billion in potential investment.
The provincial government’s move to table negotiations with TCG and mining stakeholders came a week after both governments signed a Shared Prosperity Agreement to achieve long-term land-use predictability on June 10. As part of this agreement, the province committed $20 million to TCG to support economic growth and reconciliation.
READ MORE: Tahltan Nation, B.C. government sign agreement for shared decision-making
Welcoming the agreement, TCG president Chad Norman Day said that it provides “an opportunity to meaningfully advance reconciliation grounded in the principles of respect and recognition of Tahltan rights and title.”
“The ongoing evolution and growth of the Tahltan Nation shows outside governments, industry and the world how working alongside the Tahltan Nation as true partners can help secure certainty, economic beneļ¬ts and pride for everyone involved,” said Day.
Spread across 95,933 square kilometres of northwestern British Columbia Tahltan territory covers 11 per cent of the province and includes 70 per cent of B.C.’s resource rich ‘golden triangle’.
Along with Newcrest and Skeena Resources other stakeholders such as Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine, Mining Association of British Columbia, Association for Mineral Exploration and Business Council of British Columbia will also be part of the consultation.
The discussions are scheduled to take place under the framework of Section 7 of the DRIPA Act– which B.C. adopted in 2019– which sets out provisions for negotiating consent-based decision making agreements for the the purposes of reconciliation.
“If we are successful, the agreement would bring greater clarity in decision-making and forge a partnership with the Tahltan Nation on two projects. It would also support Tahltan self-government and promote significant economic development in the region,” said Murray Rankin, B.C.’s Indigenous Relations & Reconciliation Minister.
Binny Paul, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Terrace Standard
The province of B.C is set to negotiate its first consent-based decision making agreement based on Section 7 of the Declaration of the Rights Of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) with Tahltan First Nation.
The province is holding talks with the Tahltan Central Government (TCG) – the political arm of the Tahltan First Nation – mining companies and stakeholders to reach an agreement related to environmental assessment approvals for two mining projects in Tahltan Territory.
These include the expansion of the Red Chris copper and gold mine located 80 kilometres south of Dease Lake and operated by Australian company Newcrest Red Chris Mining Ltd., and the Eskay Creek Mine operated by Skeena Resources Ltd.
The Tahltan Nation is also an investor in Skeena Resources and has developed a strong relationship with Newcrest Red Chris Mining Ltd. Both projects represent up to $3.3 billion in potential investment.
The Red Chris JV (Newcrest Red Chris Mining Ltd.) and Eskay Creek Revitalization Project (Skeena Resources) mining projects in the core Territory of the Tahltan Nation represent up to $3.3 billion in potential investment.
The provincial government’s move to table negotiations with TCG and mining stakeholders came a week after both governments signed a Shared Prosperity Agreement to achieve long-term land-use predictability on June 10. As part of this agreement, the province committed $20 million to TCG to support economic growth and reconciliation.
READ MORE: Tahltan Nation, B.C. government sign agreement for shared decision-making
Welcoming the agreement, TCG president Chad Norman Day said that it provides “an opportunity to meaningfully advance reconciliation grounded in the principles of respect and recognition of Tahltan rights and title.”
“The ongoing evolution and growth of the Tahltan Nation shows outside governments, industry and the world how working alongside the Tahltan Nation as true partners can help secure certainty, economic beneļ¬ts and pride for everyone involved,” said Day.
Spread across 95,933 square kilometres of northwestern British Columbia Tahltan territory covers 11 per cent of the province and includes 70 per cent of B.C.’s resource rich ‘golden triangle’.
Along with Newcrest and Skeena Resources other stakeholders such as Regional District of Kitimat-Stikine, Mining Association of British Columbia, Association for Mineral Exploration and Business Council of British Columbia will also be part of the consultation.
The discussions are scheduled to take place under the framework of Section 7 of the DRIPA Act– which B.C. adopted in 2019– which sets out provisions for negotiating consent-based decision making agreements for the the purposes of reconciliation.
“If we are successful, the agreement would bring greater clarity in decision-making and forge a partnership with the Tahltan Nation on two projects. It would also support Tahltan self-government and promote significant economic development in the region,” said Murray Rankin, B.C.’s Indigenous Relations & Reconciliation Minister.
Binny Paul, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Terrace Standard
Scientists unravel shocking new 'chocolate' frog in New Guinea
Nathan Howes
Embedded content: https://players.brightcove.net/1942203455001/B1CSR9sVf_default/index.html?videoId=6256695700001
A new surprising discovery of a chocolate-coloured frog in the Southern Hemisphere is shedding light on the prehistoric links between Australia and New Guinea.
Because of its colouring, the chocolate moniker was picked -- and stuck -- for the new Litoria mira species since tree frogs are generally known for their green skin, according to the study's lead author Dr. Paul Oliver, of the Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security and Queensland Museum.
SEE ALSO: B.C.'s most endangered amphibians get new lease on life
“The closest known relative of Litoria mira is the Australian green tree frog. The two species look similar except one is usually green, while the new species usually has a lovely chocolate colouring,” said Oliver, in a Griffith University news release.
ANCIENT CONNECTION BETWEEN AUSTRALIA AND NEW GUINEA
The news release stated that Australia and New Guinea were connected by land for much of the late Tertiary geologic period (2.6 million years ago) and share many of the same living elements. New Guinea is now dominated by rainforest, while northern Australia is controlled by savannah.
“Resolving the biotic interchange between these two regions is critical to understanding how the rainforest and savannah habitat types have the expanded and contracted over time of both,” Oliver said.
According to Oliver, the research estimates a connection between the two frog species can go as far back as the Pliocene Epoch (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago) across the lowland tropical habitats of northern Australia and New Guinea.
Thumbnail courtesy of Steve Richards/South Australian Museum
Nathan Howes
The Weather Network
A new surprising discovery of a chocolate-coloured frog in the Southern Hemisphere is shedding light on the prehistoric links between Australia and New Guinea.
Because of its colouring, the chocolate moniker was picked -- and stuck -- for the new Litoria mira species since tree frogs are generally known for their green skin, according to the study's lead author Dr. Paul Oliver, of the Centre for Planetary Health and Food Security and Queensland Museum.
SEE ALSO: B.C.'s most endangered amphibians get new lease on life
“The closest known relative of Litoria mira is the Australian green tree frog. The two species look similar except one is usually green, while the new species usually has a lovely chocolate colouring,” said Oliver, in a Griffith University news release.
© Provided by The Weather NetworkChocolate frog (Litoria mira) was a strange finding for researchers. (Steve Richards/South Australian Museum)
The new Litoria frog species was named Mira, which means surprised or strange in Latin, Oliver said, since it was a shocking discovery to stumble upon an "overlooked relative" of Australia’s well-known and common green tree living in the lowland rainforests of New Guinea.
The new Litoria frog species was named Mira, which means surprised or strange in Latin, Oliver said, since it was a shocking discovery to stumble upon an "overlooked relative" of Australia’s well-known and common green tree living in the lowland rainforests of New Guinea.
ANCIENT CONNECTION BETWEEN AUSTRALIA AND NEW GUINEA
The news release stated that Australia and New Guinea were connected by land for much of the late Tertiary geologic period (2.6 million years ago) and share many of the same living elements. New Guinea is now dominated by rainforest, while northern Australia is controlled by savannah.
“Resolving the biotic interchange between these two regions is critical to understanding how the rainforest and savannah habitat types have the expanded and contracted over time of both,” Oliver said.
According to Oliver, the research estimates a connection between the two frog species can go as far back as the Pliocene Epoch (5.3 to 2.6 million years ago) across the lowland tropical habitats of northern Australia and New Guinea.
© Provided by The Weather Network
Chocolate frog. (Steve Richards/South Australian Museum)
“These results emphasize that the extent and connectivity of lowland rainforest, and savannah environments across northern Australia and southern New Guinea, and the profound shifts the region has undergone since the late Pliocene," said Oliver.
Steve Richards, who co-authored the paper and is from the South Australian Museum, said researchers believe the species is likely widespread in New Guinea.
“Because the frog lives in very hot, swampy areas with lots of crocodiles, all these things discourage exploration,” said Richards, in the release.
Full details of the findings can be found in a new paper published in the Australian Journal of Zoology.
“These results emphasize that the extent and connectivity of lowland rainforest, and savannah environments across northern Australia and southern New Guinea, and the profound shifts the region has undergone since the late Pliocene," said Oliver.
Steve Richards, who co-authored the paper and is from the South Australian Museum, said researchers believe the species is likely widespread in New Guinea.
“Because the frog lives in very hot, swampy areas with lots of crocodiles, all these things discourage exploration,” said Richards, in the release.
Full details of the findings can be found in a new paper published in the Australian Journal of Zoology.
Thumbnail courtesy of Steve Richards/South Australian Museum
A CANADIAN TRADITION
Lumberjack rescues crows from felled tree, teaches them to log rollJune 18 (UPI) -- A Nova Scotia lumberjack who rescued three young crows from a felled tree said the birds are now thriving -- and he's taught them how to log roll.
Darren Hudson of Barrington said he was on a job in early June when he felled a tree and discovered he had disturbed the nest of three young crows.
"When it came crashing to the ground these guys were sitting there looking up at me and I was like 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe this,'" Hudson told SaltWire.
He put the crows in a box and left them in a nearby open field, but there was no sign of the birds' parents.
"I kept them in a box wide open in the field I was working on that day, but the parents weren't around. And so I took them home that night," Hudson told Global News.
The lumberjack said he tried again the next day, but there was no sign of the mother and father crow, so he took it on himself to finish raising the birds to adulthood.
"We're just good buddies. We've really bonded, maybe spiritually," he said.
One of the crows has a foot injury and is currently living with some friends who have experience with animal rehabilitation, but the other two have become Hudson's near-constant companions.
Hudson, who has been chronicling his life with the crows on YouTube, said he has now taught the birds how to log roll.
"Of course, they have good balance, but these guys really took to it. It was no problem for them to jump on the log and they stayed right there, and I rolled that log back and forth and they really enjoyed it," he said.
Hudson said they showed real skill at the sport.
"They're not as fast as a dog but they can stay right up there and if they start to get too far back on the log, they flap their wings and it brings them right on top again so they might have got their tail feathers wet, but I couldn't dunk them," Hudson said.
HAPPY SOLSTICE
SOL INVICTUS
NASA, USPS team up to create stunning sun stamps
The stamps showcase a decade of sun-watching from space
The U.S. Postal Service has issued a new set of stamps celebrating 10 years of sun-watching from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).
On June 18, the stamps were presented during a ceremony at the Greenbelt Main Post Office in Maryland, according to a Friday NASA release.
"It’s such a pleasure to see these gorgeous stamps," Dr. Nicky Fox, Division Director for NASA’s Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in the announcement. "I look at each of these pictures from the Solar Dynamics Observatory and am reminded of how they help us learn more about the sun and the way its constantly changing atmosphere can affect Earth and the planets. I’m pleased that this imagery will be shared by the Postal Service with the whole country."
The sun, the heart of the solar system, may be almost 93 million miles from the Earth, but in SDO photos it appears in stunning detail.
The mission was first launched in February of 2010, providing researchers with a better understanding of how solar activity is created and impacts space weather in addition to obtaining critical measurements of the star's interior, atmosphere, magnetic field and energy output.
Using two imaging instruments – the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly and the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager – the SDO began collecting data a few months after its launch, providing ultra high-definition imagery of the sun in 13 different wavelengths of light.
After more than a decade of observation, SDO has provided scientists with hundreds of millions of pictures.
The 10 SDO images on the stamps display a range of solar activity witnessed by the spacecraft.
For example, a coronal hole – a magnetically open area from which high-speed solar wind is released into space – caps the northern polar region on the sun.
An active sun is shown on another stamp, highlighting areas of intense and complex magnetic fields on the sun that are prone to erupting with solar flares or explosions.
A plasma blast is shown with a coronal mass ejection – an eruption of magnetized solar material that can create space weather effects on Earth.
Coronal loops, sunspots and solar flares are also featured in hues of red, orange and blue.
Canada
Families of victims of police violence call for action at rally outside Trudeau's office
Natalia Goodwin
'The system is built against us'
William Hudson told those in attendance about his 16-year-old daughter Eishia Hudson, who died after being shot by police in Winnipeg in April 2020.
"She had her whole life ahead of her," Hudson said. "She was a good kid, didn't have a criminal record."
The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba, one of Manitoba's police oversight agencies, looked into the case — but the officer who shot her was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Natalia Goodwin
Natalia Goodwin/CBC A rally held Saturday in Ottawa featured the families of 10 people who either died or were injured during encounters with police.
A group of Black and Indigenous families brought their case for defunding Canadian police forces to the steps of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office across the street from Parliament Hill on Saturday.
The Ottawa rally included the families of 10 people who either died or were injured during encounters with police: Anthony Aust, Eishia Hudson, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Jermaine Carby, Jamal Francique, Chantel Moore, Andrew Loku, Abdirahman Abdi, Rodney Levi and Chantelle Krupka.
Each family shared their own stories, and some called on the federal government to make changes to defund, disarm and dismantle police forces across the country. Some who spoke said they want to see money that usually funds police groups go to the families affected by the violence.
The event was held one day after a video surfaced of Montreal police kneeling on a 14-year-old's neck. It also coincided with Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States that was just made a federal holiday.
"We're seeing police killings happening on the regular, where now it's just something that we see on the news and we just sort of move on with our lives," said Syrus Marcus Ware, one of the rally's organizers and a core team member with Black Lives Matter Toronto.
"It is outrageous that we've come to accept this level of brutality from a force that we pay for — billions and billions of dollars that could be reinvested into our communities."
Ware said it was important for families to tell personal stories about their loved ones instead of relying on reports from media or police, which Ware criticized as flawed.
Victim's mother wants action, not an apology
Nhora Aust spoke about her son, Anthony Aust, who died after he fell from a 12th-floor bedroom window in Ottawa during a no-knock raid at his home. Ontario's police watchdog was investigating his death.
Nhora Aust said she doesn't want an apology, but rather action from the federal government.
"They not only took my son's life. They took my life, they took his father's life, his siblings' [lives]," she said.
"I am asking you to stop doing this, because as we speak … every day there are children going through this, there are families going through this."
A group of Black and Indigenous families brought their case for defunding Canadian police forces to the steps of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office across the street from Parliament Hill on Saturday.
The Ottawa rally included the families of 10 people who either died or were injured during encounters with police: Anthony Aust, Eishia Hudson, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, Jermaine Carby, Jamal Francique, Chantel Moore, Andrew Loku, Abdirahman Abdi, Rodney Levi and Chantelle Krupka.
Each family shared their own stories, and some called on the federal government to make changes to defund, disarm and dismantle police forces across the country. Some who spoke said they want to see money that usually funds police groups go to the families affected by the violence.
The event was held one day after a video surfaced of Montreal police kneeling on a 14-year-old's neck. It also coincided with Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the United States that was just made a federal holiday.
"We're seeing police killings happening on the regular, where now it's just something that we see on the news and we just sort of move on with our lives," said Syrus Marcus Ware, one of the rally's organizers and a core team member with Black Lives Matter Toronto.
"It is outrageous that we've come to accept this level of brutality from a force that we pay for — billions and billions of dollars that could be reinvested into our communities."
Ware said it was important for families to tell personal stories about their loved ones instead of relying on reports from media or police, which Ware criticized as flawed.
Victim's mother wants action, not an apology
Nhora Aust spoke about her son, Anthony Aust, who died after he fell from a 12th-floor bedroom window in Ottawa during a no-knock raid at his home. Ontario's police watchdog was investigating his death.
Nhora Aust said she doesn't want an apology, but rather action from the federal government.
"They not only took my son's life. They took my life, they took his father's life, his siblings' [lives]," she said.
"I am asking you to stop doing this, because as we speak … every day there are children going through this, there are families going through this."
© Natalia Goodwin/CBC Syrus Marcus Ware, one of the organizers of Saturday's rally, said it's important the public hears stories from the victims' families.
'The system is built against us'
William Hudson told those in attendance about his 16-year-old daughter Eishia Hudson, who died after being shot by police in Winnipeg in April 2020.
"She had her whole life ahead of her," Hudson said. "She was a good kid, didn't have a criminal record."
The Independent Investigation Unit of Manitoba, one of Manitoba's police oversight agencies, looked into the case — but the officer who shot her was cleared of any wrongdoing.
© Sylvain LePage/CBC Members of Eishia Hudson's family lean on each other at Saturday's rally.
"Why is it that former police, ex-cops, [are] working in these investigations units?" Hudson asked the crowd.
"The system is built against us, and it's why we're here today, standing together."
In an interview with CBC's The House, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said the federal government recognizes that systemic racism exists in Canada's criminal justice system and that they're committed to change th
"Why is it that former police, ex-cops, [are] working in these investigations units?" Hudson asked the crowd.
"The system is built against us, and it's why we're here today, standing together."
In an interview with CBC's The House, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair said the federal government recognizes that systemic racism exists in Canada's criminal justice system and that they're committed to change th
FROM MY EMAIL BOX
The Victorious Gay Greek Army That Got Canceled by History
Everybody names sports teams after the Spartans even though they were losers,
isn’t it high time we gave it up for the Thebans.
James Romm
Updated Jun. 20, 2021
Public Domain
Why do we see so many football and rugby teams named for the Spartans, and only one for the Thebans, though Thebes in fact defeated Sparta in battle and ended its reign as superpower of Greece? The explanation lies deep in the prejudices of ancient Greek historians and thinkers, as does the inspiration for that one exception: The Caledonian Thebans, Scottish ruggers who define themselves as gay, bisexual, or LGBTQ-inclusive.
Let’s start by noting that Greek Thebes (not to be confused with the Egyptian city of the same name) had unusually gay-friendly laws and social customs. Plato, who examined male love relationships in his dialogue Symposium, singled out Thebes and one other city, Elis, as places where such bonds were natural and normal, whereas, in his native Athens, they were more “complicated.”
The Thebans drew on this normative view of male love in 378 BC by training male couples as infantry soldiers and stationing them together in battle. One hundred and fifty such couples formed a powerful regiment, the Sacred Band, that led Thebes to victories over the dreaded Spartans. One of those victories, at Leuctra in 371 BC, destroyed as much as a third of Sparta’s military manpower and ended its long supremacy.
Plato seems to allude to the Sacred Band’s stunning success in Symposium, a work written at about the time of Leuctra, when he has one of his characters say that “an army of lovers and their beloveds, fighting side by side, though few in number, might defeat nearly the entire world.” A version of that quote is proudly displayed on the website of Caledonian Thebans, who claim the Sacred Band as the inspiration for their team.
But Plato does not call this army of lovers the Sacred Band or credit Thebes with its creation. Indeed, he disparages Thebes in Symposium as a society of tongue-tied numbskulls. The Thebans only encourage male unions, he has his speaker assert, because they are clumsy at finding words for seduction, unlike the elegant, fine-spoken Athenians. This remark played into a widely held Greek bias against the Thebans, who were sometimes referred to as “swine” or mocked for their rustic accents.
Lost Sappho Poems Found
FOUND
James Romm
Plato’s contemporary, Xenophon, shared this anti-Theban bias and also admired the Spartans as models of moral perfection. He’d fought under a Spartan commander and received a country estate as a gift from Sparta, and in his many writings he did his best to glorify that city. That meant diminishing Thebes and casting its victories over Sparta in the worst possible light, or even pretending they’d never happened at all.
Xenophon’s Symposium, written in response to Plato’s work, reveals the full depth of these prejudices. Like Plato, Xenophon makes Socrates the central speaker of this dialogue (both men had been students of Socrates as youths). At one point this fictionalized Socrates derides the Theban custom of placing lovers side by side in battle. They only do so, “Socrates” asserts, as a safeguard against desertion; each man keeps an eye on his partner to stop him from running away.
Xenophon’s Socrates contrasts this system with that of the Spartans, whose soldiers may fall in love but, he claims, never have sexual contact (an assertion that flies in the face of known facts). The Spartans, he says, do not need to put couples together in battle, since each man is brave on his own and does not need a watchdog. The whole discussion, with its equation of male sexual love and cowardice, adds a layer of homophobia to the standard Greek slurs against Theban witlessness and poor speech.
Modern readers can sometimes spot and correct for these biases, but outright omissions are harder to overcome, because we depend on Xenophon for so much of our record of Greek history. His chronicle Hellenica (published by Penguin under the title History of My Times) is our sole surviving contemporary account of the decades that saw the rise of Thebes and the decline of Sparta, 379 to 362 BC, but they give a very slanted and partial version of events.
In moves we might today ascribe to cancel culture, Xenophon passed in silence over some of the Theban achievements in this era, including the victories of the Sacred Band. He never gives the Band their honorific name, referring to them blandly as “the chosen men of the Thebans.” He omits altogether their first victory over Sparta, in 375 BC, an event described by another ancient source as a seismic shock to the collective Greek world.
“The Theban “gay 300,” as some have cheekily called them, are little known today.”
Sparta by that time was in steep population decline. It maintained its hold over Greece by projecting a mirage of strength, filling out its infantry ranks with unwilling conscripts or second-rate troops. Supporters like Xenophon helped it maintain that mirage, emphasizing Spartan successes in their writings and minimizing setbacks or erasing them altogether.
The mirage endures to this day. Our popular versions of ancient Greek military life pay huge tribute to Sparta but take no notice of Thebes. Zack Snyder’s two 300 films, based on the battles of Thermopylae (as depicted by graphic novelist Frank Miller) and Salamis in 480 BC, made the line “This is Sparta!” a kind of macho rallying cry, and created the meme of a muscle-bound, largely naked male figure, sporting the Spartan Ī (lambda, for “Lacedaemon,” Sparta’s home region) on his shield, as an emblem of prowess and strength.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone, ever, will shout “This is Thebes!” with similar gusto. Xenophon largely effaced the fame of this city and its Sacred Band. The Theban “gay 300,” as some have cheekily called them, are little known today, in spite of the fact that they too, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, were destroyed to a man as they fought in a hopeless struggle. Alexander the Great mowed them down, in 338 BC, at the battle of Chaeronea in northern Greece. As a tribute to their courage, they were buried where they fell; their mass grave was excavated in 1880.
All of which makes one grateful that the Caledonian Thebans, “Scotland’s premier inclusive rugby team,” helps keep the memory of the Sacred Band alive.
James Romm
Updated Jun. 20, 2021
Public Domain
Why do we see so many football and rugby teams named for the Spartans, and only one for the Thebans, though Thebes in fact defeated Sparta in battle and ended its reign as superpower of Greece? The explanation lies deep in the prejudices of ancient Greek historians and thinkers, as does the inspiration for that one exception: The Caledonian Thebans, Scottish ruggers who define themselves as gay, bisexual, or LGBTQ-inclusive.
Let’s start by noting that Greek Thebes (not to be confused with the Egyptian city of the same name) had unusually gay-friendly laws and social customs. Plato, who examined male love relationships in his dialogue Symposium, singled out Thebes and one other city, Elis, as places where such bonds were natural and normal, whereas, in his native Athens, they were more “complicated.”
The Thebans drew on this normative view of male love in 378 BC by training male couples as infantry soldiers and stationing them together in battle. One hundred and fifty such couples formed a powerful regiment, the Sacred Band, that led Thebes to victories over the dreaded Spartans. One of those victories, at Leuctra in 371 BC, destroyed as much as a third of Sparta’s military manpower and ended its long supremacy.
Plato seems to allude to the Sacred Band’s stunning success in Symposium, a work written at about the time of Leuctra, when he has one of his characters say that “an army of lovers and their beloveds, fighting side by side, though few in number, might defeat nearly the entire world.” A version of that quote is proudly displayed on the website of Caledonian Thebans, who claim the Sacred Band as the inspiration for their team.
But Plato does not call this army of lovers the Sacred Band or credit Thebes with its creation. Indeed, he disparages Thebes in Symposium as a society of tongue-tied numbskulls. The Thebans only encourage male unions, he has his speaker assert, because they are clumsy at finding words for seduction, unlike the elegant, fine-spoken Athenians. This remark played into a widely held Greek bias against the Thebans, who were sometimes referred to as “swine” or mocked for their rustic accents.
Lost Sappho Poems Found
FOUND
James Romm
Plato’s contemporary, Xenophon, shared this anti-Theban bias and also admired the Spartans as models of moral perfection. He’d fought under a Spartan commander and received a country estate as a gift from Sparta, and in his many writings he did his best to glorify that city. That meant diminishing Thebes and casting its victories over Sparta in the worst possible light, or even pretending they’d never happened at all.
Xenophon’s Symposium, written in response to Plato’s work, reveals the full depth of these prejudices. Like Plato, Xenophon makes Socrates the central speaker of this dialogue (both men had been students of Socrates as youths). At one point this fictionalized Socrates derides the Theban custom of placing lovers side by side in battle. They only do so, “Socrates” asserts, as a safeguard against desertion; each man keeps an eye on his partner to stop him from running away.
Xenophon’s Socrates contrasts this system with that of the Spartans, whose soldiers may fall in love but, he claims, never have sexual contact (an assertion that flies in the face of known facts). The Spartans, he says, do not need to put couples together in battle, since each man is brave on his own and does not need a watchdog. The whole discussion, with its equation of male sexual love and cowardice, adds a layer of homophobia to the standard Greek slurs against Theban witlessness and poor speech.
Modern readers can sometimes spot and correct for these biases, but outright omissions are harder to overcome, because we depend on Xenophon for so much of our record of Greek history. His chronicle Hellenica (published by Penguin under the title History of My Times) is our sole surviving contemporary account of the decades that saw the rise of Thebes and the decline of Sparta, 379 to 362 BC, but they give a very slanted and partial version of events.
In moves we might today ascribe to cancel culture, Xenophon passed in silence over some of the Theban achievements in this era, including the victories of the Sacred Band. He never gives the Band their honorific name, referring to them blandly as “the chosen men of the Thebans.” He omits altogether their first victory over Sparta, in 375 BC, an event described by another ancient source as a seismic shock to the collective Greek world.
“The Theban “gay 300,” as some have cheekily called them, are little known today.”
Sparta by that time was in steep population decline. It maintained its hold over Greece by projecting a mirage of strength, filling out its infantry ranks with unwilling conscripts or second-rate troops. Supporters like Xenophon helped it maintain that mirage, emphasizing Spartan successes in their writings and minimizing setbacks or erasing them altogether.
The mirage endures to this day. Our popular versions of ancient Greek military life pay huge tribute to Sparta but take no notice of Thebes. Zack Snyder’s two 300 films, based on the battles of Thermopylae (as depicted by graphic novelist Frank Miller) and Salamis in 480 BC, made the line “This is Sparta!” a kind of macho rallying cry, and created the meme of a muscle-bound, largely naked male figure, sporting the Spartan Ī (lambda, for “Lacedaemon,” Sparta’s home region) on his shield, as an emblem of prowess and strength.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone, ever, will shout “This is Thebes!” with similar gusto. Xenophon largely effaced the fame of this city and its Sacred Band. The Theban “gay 300,” as some have cheekily called them, are little known today, in spite of the fact that they too, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, were destroyed to a man as they fought in a hopeless struggle. Alexander the Great mowed them down, in 338 BC, at the battle of Chaeronea in northern Greece. As a tribute to their courage, they were buried where they fell; their mass grave was excavated in 1880.
All of which makes one grateful that the Caledonian Thebans, “Scotland’s premier inclusive rugby team,” helps keep the memory of the Sacred Band alive.
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