Hippeis, not Hippies

[Paullus Scipio]

You are right that I am no great fan of Paul Cartledge....but rather than digress into that, I'll stick to Nigel Kennell to demonstrate the 'lazy thinking' of many modern authors on the subject.....

On campaign the Hippeis and Hippagretai answered directly to the kings, at home to the ephors

...a rather pointless comment, because it was true of everybody, not just the Hippeis. The King had ultimate authority for day-to-day decisions on campaign. ( see ante and Herodotus VI.54 )

The Hippeis also acted as the domestic security service as in the Cinadon crisis (Xen. Hell. 3.3.9)

...Huh? "Hippeis" are, strictly speaking, never mentioned by Xenophon. Kinadon is tricked into thinking he is to go and arrest some people. He asks which of the 'hebontes'/young men he is to take with him ( n.b. not 'Hippeis' - can you really imagine 'the flower of Sparta' taking orders from a 'hypomeione'/inferior? Unthinkable!....and one wonders that any 'hebonte' would) He is told "Go to the senior 'Hippagreta' and ask him for six or seven of the men he happens to have available." Men, not 'Hippeis', not even 'Hebontes', but quite possibly fellow 'hypomeiones', or even 'Helots' or slaves......so we don't know who was sent with Kinadon, but it evidently wasn't 'Hippeis' - and from this comes another Myth !! 'Hippeis' as domestic security service/MI5 ? Hardly a logical conclusion.

The Hippeis also seem to have constituted a special strike force at the ephors' direct disposal...

...Really? What is the evidence for them ever being a 'special strike force' ? When do we see them used as such in any of our sources? Perhaps the author has Thermopylae in mind ? But we have seen that if Herodotus was telling facts rather than 'myth', the '300' were selected by Leonidas personally ( not the Hippagretae) from men over 30 - in fact over 31 if they had sons!....who by definition couldn't have been 'Hippeis' ( 'hebontes' under 30)

and in the company of an elite guard of 100 men picked from the 300-strong crack (there it is again) corps of hippeis (knights)..."

Nor is this likely to be true. Herodotus tells us that, among the priveleges of a Spartan King is that , on service, they have a bodyguard of '100 picked men' ( with the implication, seemingly confirmed by Xenophon, that it was the King, as you would expect who did the picking, from among those he trusted) - not "100 men picked from the Hippeis", and if the later practice described by Xenophon is any guide, these men may have included the King's friends, relations, and their sons - and one would expect that some/many of them might be ex-'Hippeis' in their youth, or even serving 'Hippeis', but that is a very different thing from them being 'allocated', say, by the 'Hippagretae' from among the 'Hippeis' .....

Sloppy fact checking, or else simply following other secondary sources.......valueless then x