The Hound | 18 Jul 2010 12:05 p.m. PST |
Why so little in wargaming items on Epaminodas and the Theban army. I mean there are lot of battles involving him. An he effectively beat the best Army in the world everytime they met he broke Spartan dominance. I mean there is hardly a full line of thebans, I don't know if there is a Epaminodas figure. I mean there are 5 ranges of Etruscans(nothing against Etruscans I am intrested in their history and might use thee figures to make an early roman army.)but Epaminodas' contribution to military history is war more. If he had survived a lttle little longer i know he would be 65 (but Leonidas was 60 at Thermopalye.) maybe Phillip of Macedon might have not won, and know one would know oabout alexander the Great today. |
aecurtis | 18 Jul 2010 12:22 p.m. PST |
TMPer JJartist has a page on him: link |
Mulopwepaul | 18 Jul 2010 12:40 p.m. PST |
I think it has to do with the fact that Epaminondas didn't inspire contemporaries as a glorious empire-builder. What use was his tactical brilliance if he didn't wield it to any long-term consequence other than the ruin of his opponents? |
John the OFM | 18 Jul 2010 1:43 p.m. PST |
The difficulty in pronouncing his name correctly. |
ochoin deach | 18 Jul 2010 2:53 p.m. PST |
His "friends" called him 'Pammie'. (not that there's anything wrong with that) |
Pictors Studio | 18 Jul 2010 3:01 p.m. PST |
How would Thebans be different from other greek figures? |
Steve At Immortal Miniatures | 18 Jul 2010 3:32 p.m. PST |
Quite simply, they wouldn't look any different from the other city states
with the possible exception of Sparta. |
John the OFM | 18 Jul 2010 3:43 p.m. PST |
Some enterprising manufacturer should just relabel his "Athenian Hoplites" as "Theban Hoplites". |
Pictors Studio | 18 Jul 2010 4:27 p.m. PST |
Didn't foundry have a pack of Theban hoplites for a while there? |
Wyatt the Odd | 18 Jul 2010 4:50 p.m. PST |
Its because the Spartans were the WW2 Germans of their time so everyone wants to their stuff. Wyatt |
aecurtis | 18 Jul 2010 5:17 p.m. PST |
"Didn't foundry have a pack of Theban hoplites for a while there?" Yes, and still do: one-piece, single pose, all in Boeotian helmets and with the infamous battle bowler shields cast on. picture The Former US Foundry rep had a large lot of them on eBay a couple of weekends ago with an excellent "Buy it now" price. (I don't necessarily agree with universal Boeotian helmets, and I'm not up to sawing off yet another 40 or so shields, those being particularly miserable ones to saw
) Allen |
goragrad | 18 Jul 2010 5:25 p.m. PST |
Actually Xyston and Essex have them in 15mm (single hoplite figure for Essex, but a whole range for Xyston). Foundry still has Thebans in 28mm and Essex, again, has a single 25/28mm Theban hoplite figure. Hat also does a Theban set for those who prefer plastic. Insofar as the difference in appearance. the manufacturers (particularly Xston and Hat as they do ranges) seem to think that the Theban hoplites wore Boetian helmets. Discussion on TMP in the past on the topic has favored the usual mix of equipment and helmet styles, although the counter argument is that Thebes may have issued helmets and shields (with the Club of Herakles device) from state stores. Ha Allen got there first on the Foundries. And reiterate his view on the helmets as well. |
rddfxx | 18 Jul 2010 5:50 p.m. PST |
There are rmultiple references to the man in wargaming lit. indeed, just what do you expect? There are Theban army lists galore, scenarios. I'm also with Allen on the "universal Boeotian helmets issue". Shields don't bother me much, though |
Mithridates | 18 Jul 2010 6:01 p.m. PST |
I believe that Victrix will have a Theban set of plastic hoplites out later this year – may spark some more interest. |
John the OFM | 18 Jul 2010 6:39 p.m. PST |
And how will they be identifiable as "Theban"? As for that old chestnut about "shields (with the Club of Herakles device) from state stores", hoplites were gentlemen who bought their own equiptment. |
bruntonboy | 18 Jul 2010 11:32 p.m. PST |
I appreciate the original posters sentiments to some degree. I think the issue is how come Spartans are a common army to see on the table whilst Thebans are scarce. Also Spartans with their fancy cloaks, uniform shield designs (allegedly) and frequent appearances in miniature raanges are familiar whilst the Thebans who bested them are largely invisible. Why is this so..? Maybe its because everyone likes a bunch of baddies, the Spartans fit the bill with their child friendly policies and suspicious red and black colour schemes. Spartans are credited with the saving of western civilisation- at least by Hollywood. Perhaps many see the Spartans as some sort of heroic freedom loving embodiment of the west. On the other hand Thebans allied with the Persians (therefore any threat from the east since then- Persians, Ottomans, Islam or god-less Communism. Spartans had rigid manly discipline, the Thebans had the Sacred Band. Epaminondas and the Theban army perhaps should have a greater presence in the Wargames psyche, after all Frederick the Great seemed to have learned a thing or two from them but does it matter? Wargamers reflect the wider world and I bet if you asked around many non-historians or gamers would have a cursory knowledge of the Spartans but how many would have heard of the Thebans? So I don't think its surprising. The best Wargames coverage of them is probably in Charles Grant's old "Ancient Wargaming" book. He gives them plenty of nods in there. Graham |
goragrad | 19 Jul 2010 12:04 a.m. PST |
Sparta 'Come back with your shield or on it,' the 300 (people don't here about the Thespians, etc.), the rigid discipline, etc. It is a mythos that has had more PR. There is some knowledge of Athens – Salamis, Marathon, the Acropolis and Parthenon, maybe Perikles. That would be the limits of even the more well educated of the general public. Anything else would be Greek to them. |
Steve At Immortal Miniatures | 19 Jul 2010 1:30 a.m. PST |
Uniform shield designs were only used in battles where Greeks were fighting other Greeks, to stop them from killing each other in the confusion of battle (which is recorded many times). We know the Athenians did not use uniform shield designs. During the siege of Plataea they smeared their bodies and faces with oil so they could distinguish themselves from the Plataeans. We know the Spartans introduced the uniform shield emblem at some point, but no one can agree when. Ive read an interesting argument that initially this may only have been on state issued shields, to show the bearer did not own it and the state did. We know the Thebans had the club emblem on their shields at Leuctra, I believe their allies did too. I seem to remember the cavalry also painted their helmets white? To add to the puzzle, no one knows for certain which helmet the Boeotian style is. All surviving Theban steles show them wearing Pilos helmets. Maybe by the time of Leuctra the Thebans and Spartans looked very similar. We know that red had become a very popular tunic colour by then. I can't remember is Spartans had also started shaving by this time? |
BigRedBat | 19 Jul 2010 2:43 a.m. PST |
Re Foundry, they also do a pack of Theban hoplites with detached shields in 4 poses. Their Boeotian helmets aren't very convincing but they are otherwise very nice minis, which can be given better shields if preferred. It would be great if there were sone non-Spartan minis, compatible with WotGs, wearing Pilos. One could then mix them in with the Foundry Thebans or other later hoplite minis. I hope Gorgon or Polemarch will do some, at some point. Simon |
CooperSteveOnTheLaptop | 19 Jul 2010 4:48 a.m. PST |
I guess Thebes in Greece had a twinning agreement with Thebes in egypt so just use Saitic Egyptians |
aecurtis | 19 Jul 2010 5:45 a.m. PST |
"Re Foundry, they also do a pack of Theban hoplites with detached shields in 4 poses. Their Boeotian helmets aren't very convincing but they are otherwise very nice minis, which can be given better shields if preferred." True: picture |
Jeff Ewing | 19 Jul 2010 5:48 a.m. PST |
I believe it's because our best source on the period -- Xenophon -- hated him so much (for whupping his beloved Spartans) that *he won't even use his name*, referring to him merely as "The Theban general." I like CooperSteve's suggestion, though! |
John the OFM | 19 Jul 2010 8:37 a.m. PST |
While I do not buy ALL of Victor Davis Hanson's thesis in "The Soul of Battle", it is still a fun read. Basically, yeoman citizen farmers take up the sword (or rifle or tank) to smite tyrannic aggression. Thebes vs Sparta, The Union vs the slavocrat Confederacy, Patton vs the Nazis. He skips over the part abvout the Confederacy being yeoman farmers, but why let facts get in the way of a good story? In a roundabout way, I am agreeing with Bruntonboy. All the cool kids paint up German SS, while only the old farts do the 4th Armored Division. What's the first army that a newby Ancients gamer does? Spartans of course. What is his first complaint? That they do not win just by putting them on the table. Spartans had rigid manly discipline, the Thebans had the Sacred Band.
Rigid
manly
Naaah. Spartans? Naaah. Naaah, they weren't into that. |
CooperSteveOnTheLaptop | 19 Jul 2010 9:09 a.m. PST |
Yes they were. They didn't stop at combing their comrade's hair. Or at least didn't stop at his head |
CooperSteveOnTheLaptop | 19 Jul 2010 9:11 a.m. PST |
The Boers were Yeoman farmers. While their Zulu foes were not peacenik democrats, they didn't create an apartherid system either
|
Pictors Studio | 19 Jul 2010 9:20 a.m. PST |
He also skips over the part that the first thebans to meet with their spartan adversaries on the field at Leutra were the sacred band who were probably nearly as much of a military elite as their opponents. |
JJartist | 19 Jul 2010 10:45 a.m. PST |
The answer is so simple
Thebes was wiped out by Alexander. After being sacked the population dispersed. Soldiers went east to fight for Persia. Sparta, despite defeat survived the Macedonian conquests (barely), and at a lower form of existance survived until they were annexed by Rome. If Sparta have been rubbed out and Thebes had beaten back Macedon and lived on for centuries and become a hub of learning and scholarship then maybe the histories would have been written differently. Theban Medizing may have been written as a neccessary expense of survival after the Pelopponesians cowardly abandoned them to man their futile wall across the isthmus, and the cowardly Athneians fled to their island. Maybe Alexander dies on the spear points of the Sacred Band, and Macedon is crushed by one of Pelopidas' sons. The Theban hegemony may have grown powerful enough to control Thessaly to Corcyra and Illyria, then turned west instead of east
. Historians, eagerly wishing commissions and patronage would have skewed the history to make Thebes the grandest Classical city, live on that way, not those merchant-nazi Athenians, or the ant-men of Sparta. JJ |
Lee Brilleaux | 19 Jul 2010 2:10 p.m. PST |
The ant-men of Sparta? Damn, I would buy them! That sounds like a Pulp 'novelet' from 1935. I suspect that while the Spartans have grabbed our attention with their, well, everything and the Athenian publicity machine has persuaded us they were the fathers of democracy etc, the dour agriculturalists of Thebes lacked any sort of PR outreach to lure us to their, um, dour agriculturalist army. Crummy work by the Theban Chamber of Commerce, say I. (I have the Foundry hoplites with the little shields and melty-brimmed helmets as well.) |
doug redshirt | 19 Jul 2010 4:44 p.m. PST |
In the old Tactica rules and army lists, the best games I ever played were when the Thebans fought the Spartans. For the longest time the Thebans and their Sacred Band were unbeatable in our gaming group. Saturday after Saturday someone would try and knock off the Thebans from their undefeated ranks only to fail as the Theban phalanx marched over them. I finally found a way to beat the Thebans by winning the deployment phase and getting a Spartan unit deployed outside his flank. It still came down to a couple good morale rolls as the big deep Theban phalanx tried to run over the Spartan unit in front of it before the Spartan flank unit could hit it. After rolling to pass morale twice the flanking Spartan unit hit it and routed it off the table. |
The Hound | 19 Jul 2010 7:21 p.m. PST |
"On the other hand Thebans allied with the Persians " Macedonia was also allied to the Persians during the Greek Persian wars |
BigRedBat | 20 Jul 2010 2:00 a.m. PST |
It is surprising thet Epaminondas is not better known, if only because one can see echoes of his tactics in Alexander's own. Simon |
Steve At Immortal Miniatures | 20 Jul 2010 2:53 a.m. PST |
Those foundry hoplite helmets are fine. They are the early form of the 'Boeotian' style of helmet shown on some vase paintings dating from the end of the 5th century to the start of the 4th. |
Mark Watson | 20 Jul 2010 3:56 a.m. PST |
There's a discussion on the shield devices in a Slingshot letters page (checks the DVD – it's issue 220): Synthesising the comments of Luke Ueda Sarson, Duncan Head and Karl Heinz Ranitsch: - at Leuctra (per Plutarch) the Thebans had individual shield designs, which may have included the club, but there are references to others - at second Mantinea (per Xenophon) the device seems to have been painted onto the Theban (and Arcadian) shields directly before the battle, and the language implies that it was painted onto the metal background, not onto a painted background. |
khurasanminiatures | 22 Jul 2010 5:48 a.m. PST |
From a "march of time" perspective the Thebans don't hit a benchmark -- it's Athens that first attempts hegemony, Sparta that achieves it, and Macedon that makes it international. |
JJartist | 22 Jul 2010 7:56 a.m. PST |
Theban hegemony lasted for about 32 (371-338) years, if we stretch things a bit
not too much shorter than the 35 years of stinky Spartan hegemony (404-371), achieved by selling themselves out to the Persian King. JJ |