Aristomenes

Speranza

Aristomenes is a savage and murderous warrior, a solitaryfigure who, like Sparta's young elite soldiers belonging to the Krupteia, crosses a mountain by himself and strikes by night.

In Sparta, the young men who took part in the Krupteia, a wild nocturnal, daring, and quasi-individualistic form of hunting and warfare, also served in the hoplitic elite corps, the Hippeis.

Aristomenes combined both types of martial behaviour, in reality complementary, in his person.

Aristomenes's role as creator of the phalanx is worth noting.

Composed of youths of his own age group, in one sense it transformed an 'agele' into a military orgnisation.

In Crete and in nearby Laconia, the promotion of an agele to a corps of warrior-citizens was accompanied in myth or ritual by same-sex practice.

Aristomenes was the patron of same-sex military rituals.

Knowing the symbolism of promotion in Sparta, and the internal structure of the Theban phalanx, a military creator of same-sex military inclination was _required_: Aristomenes was tailor-made for this purpose.