Order of Chaeronea
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The secret homosexual society founded in London in 1897 by George Ives. Convinced that homosexuals would not be openly accepted, it built an underground network to cultivate a homosexual moral, cultural and spiritual ethos. Named after the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC, where the Sacred Band of Thebes was destroyed, it probably counted Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas among its early recruits.
In depth
The Order of Chaeronea was founded in 1897 by George Ives, a friend of Wilde whom he had recently met, to promote “the Cause”. It was named after the battle of 338 BC in which the Theban Band of male lovers was slaughtered, and members dated their letters from that year, writing 1900 as “C.2238”. It arose as a current that saw homosexuality as no crime was growing in Europe, as in the movement of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, who coined the word “Uranian” in the 1860s.
The “Rules of Purpose” of the Order of Chaeronea called it “A Religion, A Theory of Life, and Ideal of Duty”, though its purpose was primarily political. Members, “Brothers of the Faith”, swore at initiation “that you will never vex or persecute lovers”; there were rituals, seals, codes, the unexplained sign-word “AMRRHAO”, and a special reverence for Walt Whitman. Male-dominated, it included a few lesbian members; at its peak it may have numbered two or three hundred, but no membership lists survive. Wilde and Douglas were probably early recruits.
Ives stressed that the Order of Chaeronea was to be an ascetic movement rather than a place for men to meet men for sex, and believed that love between men could undermine the rigid class system as a true form of democracy. The Order soon became a worldwide organisation.