Hippeis, not Hippies

[PMBardunias]

I suggest that perhaps they were drawn specifically from the aristocracy originally. In that respect they would have been from the same echelons as the two royal families and therefore naturally formed his protective peer group. The usage of the term knights reminds one of the fabled Arthurian companions or indeed to return to Hellas - of Alexander's immediate peer group. It was certainly not unusual for such social structure to pervade into the armies of those times (or indeed many other periods in history).

I see no reason to make the origin of the Hippeis any more or less an aristocratic element than the Athenian Hippeis, the Roman Equites, or the Mediaval knight, as is made clear in the French/Spanish/Italian terms for them Chevalier/Caballaero/Cavalieri. All of there draw their name from the fact that they represent a group that at some time in the past or present could afford to own and train horses. There is no need to make them especially tied to the King.

I think there is possibly a little more to the Krypteia than that, as I tried to develop in another thread which wasn't widely responded to . I am intrigued by the continuing presence of this entity down to the tantalising reference to the appearance of their commander at Sellasia. To use your modern British/American forces analogy, perhaps the Hippeis would be like a Household Guards unit (or US equivalent), whereas the Krypteia more like the SAS or Delta Force.
Perhaps we could develop this discussion further: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=27368 ?

I did not write of this because there is not much to write. The Krypteia were a small subset of those young men who were exiting the Agoge. They would not have been blooded yet and this rite is probably the same as the "blooding" writes of passage common to many cultures. That you would use such boys as anything approaching a special forces unit I find impossible. You would not use men who had never killed or even been in battle for this role.

Yes perhaps a little dismissive, bearing in mind one school of opinion was that the Argives were given the necessary space to make an orderly withdrawal - the Spartans not wishing to demolish fellow Dorians in front of their Ionian compatriots on this occasion.

There's no need to resort to Pan-dorianism. Xenophon tells us that Agiselaos should have done at Coronea exatly what was done to the Argives- let them pass and attack them to keep them moving.