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The Spartan royal bodyguard were called Ἱππεῖς, although we only hear of them serving on foot; we are expressly told (Strabo, 481) that they differed from the Cretan ἱππεῖς in having no horses; the name is a survival from early times (cf. ἡνίοχοι and παραβάται in Theban Sacred Band (Diod. xii. 70) for a like survival). This is more probable than that they were mounted infantry, like the early Athenian ἱππεῖς (cf. 63. 2 n.), who used horses as a means of transport, but fought on foot. There was no genuine cavalry in Laconia till 424 B. C., when παρὰ τὸ εἰωθός (Thuc. iv. 55. 2) a corps of 400 horsemen was set up.

The Spartan ‘horsemen’ were three hundred in number, cf. vii. 205. 2 (though this corps at Thermopylae was perhaps specially selected), viii. 124. 3; Thuc. v. 72. 4. In vi. 56 the king's bodyguard is only one hundred. H. seems to imply that they served by rotation; perhaps thirty were enrolled each year, one from each ὠβή. Some see in this the explanation of τριηκάς (65. 5); if this be so, perhaps the five seniors among those serving their last year were ἀγαθοεργοί and had civil functions. Xenophon (Rep. Lac. iv. 3) speaks of a special body of three hundred, chosen each year by three ἱππαγρέται, nominated by the ephors; if these three hundred are the ‘knights’, the change in method of election may be a mark of the increased power of the ephors in later times.

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