Quotes About Thebans

Philip won the day. As many as half the Athenians and Thebans were either killed or taken prisoner.

Time to unite the Sacred Bands, Thebans and his people: one unit, one heart, one swing through life.

One of them, the philosopher Philostratus, summed up the idea by saying that the great athletes of the past "made war training for sport, and sport training for war." Turning Spartan logic on its head, Plutarch even claimed that the Thebans at the great Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC defeated the Spartans because they had done more training at the palaestra; he also wrote that sport, wrestling specifically included, was an imitation and exercise of war.