At present, however, I only notice this new financial and political classification introduced in 378 B.C., as one evidence of the ardor with which Athens embarked in her projected war against Sparta. The feeling among her allies, the Thebans, was no less determined. The government of Leontiades and the Spartan garrison had left behind it so strong an antipathy, that the large majority of citizens, embarking heartily in the revolution against them, lent themselves to all the orders of Pelopidas and his colleagues; who, on their part, had no other thought but to repel the common enemy. The Theban government now became probably democratical in form; and still more democratical in spirit, from the unanimous ardor pervading the whole mass. Its military force was put under the best training; the most fertile portion of the plain north of Thebes, from which the chief subsistence of the city came, was surrounded by a ditch and a palisade,[242] to repel the expected Spartan invasion; and the memorable Sacred Band was now for the first time organized. This was a brigade of three hundred hoplites, called the Lochus, or regiment of the city, as being consecrated to the defence of the Kadmeia, or acropolis.[243] It was put under constant arms and training, at the public expense, like the Thousand at Argos, of whom mention was made in my seventh volume.[244] It consisted of youthful citizens from the best families, distinguished for their strength and courage amidst the severe trials of the palæstra in Thebes, and was marshalled in such manner, that each pair of neighboring soldiers were at the same time intimate friends; so that the whole band were thus kept together by ties which no dangers could sever. At first its destination, under Gorgidas its commander (as we see by the select Three Hundred who fought in 424 B.C. at the battle of Delium),[245] was to serve as front rank men, for the general body of hoplites to follow. But from a circumstance to be mentioned presently, it came to be employed by Pelopidas and Epaminondas as a regiment by itself, and in a charge was then found irresistible.[246] [242] Xen. Hellen. v, 4, 38. [243] Plutarch. Pelopid. c. 18, 19. [244] Hist. of Greece. Vol. VII, ch. lv, p. 11. [245] Diodor. xii, 70. These pairs of neighbors who fought side by side at Delium, were called Heniochi and Parabatæ,—Charioteers and Side Companions; a name borrowed from the analogy of chariot-fighting, as described in the Iliad and probably in many of the lost epic poems; the charioteer being himself an excellent warrior, though occupied for the moment with other duties,—Diomedes and Sthenelus, Pandarus and Æneas, Patroklus and Automedon, etc. [246] Plutarch, Pelopidas, c. 18, 19.