Agathoergoi
Agathoergoi ( Greek Ἀγαθοεργοί ) were members of the Spartan elite troops in ancient Greece .
This elite group formed the bodyguard of the Spartan kings and consisted of 300 selected men who had to have biological descendants. Originally fighting on horseback and on foot, they were called hippeis , "riders" or "knights", although in historical times they only fought on foot. They joined the force in their 20th year and served for ten years. Every year five men from this troop were retired, but in their final year they had to take on special services for the state, mostly broadcast trips on specific missions. These five men in their final year were called Agathoergoi , "those who do good things," according to Herodotus .
As a representative of the Agathoergoi Herodotus names a lichas who was commissioned to find the bones of Orestes and to bring them to Sparta. Because the Spartans were in the 6th century BC The oracle of Delphi gave the information that they could only win the war against Tegea that had been going on for decades in this way. When Lichas found the bones in a forge in Tegea and reported them to the Spartans without having brought them with him, they wanted to accuse him and ban him. So he returned to Tegea, dug up the bones of Orestes and brought them to Sparta. Now the war against Tegea could be ended successfully and the Spartan hegemony over Arcadia expanded.
According to the Byzantine lexicon Suda , which emerged towards the end of the 10th century, the Agathoergoi were men chosen for their merits: Ἀγαθοεργοί: αἱρετοὶ κατ 'ἀνδραγαθίαν . Timaeus Sophista , who wrote during the Roman Empire , used precisely this formulation in his lexicon for the works of Plato . The additional information from the Suda that the Agathoergoi were selected “by the Ephors” ( ἐκ τῶν Ἐφόρων ) is the subject of discussion. According to David Whitehead, the Suda addition should be read as "from [the scriptures] of Ephorus " and taken as a source, which Ian C. Cunningham immediately appealed .
swell
- Herodotus, Histories 1, 67 ; 8.124
- Thucydides 5.72
- Xenophon , The State of the Lacedaemonians 4.3
literature
- Alfred Neumann : Ἀγαθοεργοί. In: The Little Pauly (KlP). Volume 1, Stuttgart 1964, Col. 117.
- Emil Szanto : Ἀγαθοεργοί . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume I, 1, Stuttgart 1893, Col. 747.
Remarks
- ↑ Suda , keyword Ἀγαθοεργοί , Adler number: alpha 115 , Suda-Online
- ↑ Timaeus Sophista, Lexicon Platonicum (Codex Coislinianus 345) Letter Alpha, page 971a, line 15: Πλάτων. <Αγαθοεργοί>. αἱρετοὶ κατ 'ἀνδραγαθίαν .
- ^ David Whitehead: Ephorus (?) On the Spartan constitution. In: Classical Quarterly. NS Volume 55, 2005, pp. 299-301.
- ^ Ian C. Cunningham: Not a new Fragment of Ephoros. In: Classical Quarterly. NS Volume 61, 2011, pp. 312-314.