Hippeis, not Hippies

[Paullus Scipio]

Kineas wrote:

I'm not with my books, but I seem to remember someone (Xenophon?) stating hat Olympic victor were automatically included in this body of men at Sparta--which certainly makes it seem as if it was run on the Cretan model.

Not I ! Plutarch's tale of the Olympic Spartan wrestler who refused to be bribed to "throw" a match is almost certainly apochryphal/very doubtful.

Paul Mac wrote:

Stefanos wrote:

The king had two bodyguards in battle that they were either Olympic champions or Pythian Champions

...is there any other reference for this, other than the anecdote you refer to, since most commentators seem to agree that the hero of it would simply be sufficiently prominent as to be chosen for the Hippeis, rather than literally 'beside the King'. What would happen if there were more than two Olympic/Pythian/Other Games Champions in Sparta at the time ? Would an Olympic champion necessarily make a good bodyguard ?

In addition, Stefanos is incorrect on two counts, firstly the anecdote is NOT in Plutrach's "Moralia", but rather in his "Life of Lykurgos."( XXI) and secondly there is NO mention of Pythian games.

Paul Bardunias wrote:

Which flank of Agiselaos did Kyniska guard?

( sister of King Agesilaus, who as owner, won the four-horse chariot race in 396 and 392 BC )
...and....

I recently read a chapter in one of Powell's spartan titles about Spartans and the olympics. There was a table that showed almost all of the olympic victors in the last quarter of the 5th c were winners only of chariot racing. Since the winner of chariot races were not even the fellow driving, but the person who bred and trained the horses, this does not speak well for the qualification of a bodyguard! Perhaps someone knows more about the list of victors than was in this one chapter I found.

Since Spartan "Olympic Champions" were distinctly lacking, other than wealthy horse owners, even if the story is not apochryphal, the custom must have died out by the 5 C. Other problems with this nice yarn are that we don't hear of any such 'Olympic Champion Guards' when 'those around the King' are referred to in our sources, and what happened if others 'qualified' at the next Olympics? Were the two guards changed every four years? And in the 5 C, when there was a dearth of winners, did the old ones go on until doddery old age and death? Nice moral story, but almost certainly untrue.....

Kineas wrote:

But to me--and I'm not a Lakonia-phile--it seems to to me "un-Spartan" for the king to have a "bodyguard" like some tyrant. An elite warband of the best and handsomenest to fight beside him--sure. But a "Royal Bodyguard" somehow sounds at odds with the "idea" of Sparta--Sparta, the home of "anti-tyranny."

Xenophon, that most knowledgeable of writers about Sparta calls the bodyguard of Agesilaus "Doruphoroi"/lit:Spear-Carriers (Xen. Hell. IV.5.9 )- exactly the same word used earlier of Tyrant's body guards ( e.g. Hdt [I.59]- the word is used in this context frequently by many writers), but elsewhere he tells us that on one occasion this bodyguard consisted of 50 'volunteers' - friends, advisors, senior officers and their relatives as 'adjutants', and see also those killed around Cleombrotus at Leuktra, so your hunch about 'elite warband' is likely correct for classical times.... :wink:

Davidson (Courtesans and Fishcakes Davidson) presents some pretty decent evidence for the Hippeis tradition in Crete, where the best, brightest, strongest and handsomest of the "Young Men" were apparently selected to fill the ranks of the "Hippeis" and have a special place in battle--possibly the front rank.

...It is correct that there was a "Hippeis" tradition among their fellow Dorians in Crete, and that both originated in a select band of horse-owning aristocratic young men - but there the similarity ends. Once Sparta became 'democratic' and the 'Homioi'/equals ran the place, that disappeared with the aristocracy, and the 'Hippeis' became the 'cream' of the young Spartan 'Homioi' hoplites, selected by merit ( as per Xenophon's constitution of the Lakedaemonians) - see earlier refernces in the thread. Another Dorian tradition in common was the 'syssistia'/ common meals or messes.