In the old debate surrounding Xenophon's and Plato's works, the Sacred Band has figured prominently as a possible way of dating which of the two wrote their version of "Symposium" first. Xenophon's Socrates in his "Symposium" disapprovingly mentions the practice of placing lovers beside each other in battle in the city-states of Thebes and Elis, arguing that while the practice was acceptable to them, it was shameful for Athenians. Both Plato and Xenophon were Athenians. According to the British classical scholar Sir Kenneth Dover, this was a clear allusion to the Sacred Band, reflecting Xenophon's contemporary, albeit anachronistic, awareness of the Theban practice, as the dramatic date of the work itself is c. 421 BC.