Band of Brothers

I suspect I'm not the only person who is constantly behind on his New Yorker issues, but once I finally got around to reading this article from last April, I knew I had to share it--if only for the illustration. In writing about "Ancient Greece's Army of Lovers," Daniel Mendelsohn references James Romm's The Sacred Band: Three Hundred Theban Lovers Fight to Save Greek Civilization. The book's illustrator, Markley Boyer, collated 19th-century drawings of the mass grave in which the skeletons of 254 of the 300 soldiers were found. Some of the couples were buried with arms linked, and some were holding hands. (You can see that better by clicking on the article link.)