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King Leonidas

Leonidas (Greek: Λεωνίδας - "Lion's son", "Lion-like") was a king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed to be a descendant of Heracles. He succeeded his half-brother Cleomenes I, probably in 489 BC or 488 BC, and was married to Cleomenes' daughter, Gorgo. His name was raised to a heroic and legendary status as a result of the events in the Battle of Thermopylae.

In 480 BC, Leonidas went to Thermopylae with 300 of his personal guard, all men with sons to carry on their names, where he was joined by forces from other Greek city-states, who put themselves under his command to form an army 7,000 strong. This force was assembled in an attempt to hold the pass of Thermopylae against the hundreds of thousands of Persian soldiers who had invaded from the north of Greece under Xerxes I. The reason Leonidas took only his personal guard, and not the army, was that Spartan religious customs forbade sending an army at that time of year. In addition, the Oracle of Delphi had foretold that Sparta could be saved only by the death of one of its kings, one of the lineage of Heracles, so he was deliberately going to his doom. Instead it seems likely that the ephors supported the plan half-heartedly due to the festival of Carneia and their policy of concentrating the Greek forces at the Isthmus of Corinth.

Leonidas and his men repulsed the frontal attacks of the Persians for the first two days, killing roughly 20,000 of the enemy troops and losing very few of their own. The Persian elite unit known to the Greeks as "the Immortals" were held back, and two of Xerxes' brothers died in battle. On the third day a Malian Greek traitor named Ephialtes led the Persian general Hydarnes by a mountain track to the rear of the Greeks. When a scout was sent to check on the troops, he returned with the bad news. At that point Leonidas sent away all Greek troops and remained in the pass with his 300 Spartans, 900 Helots and 700 Thespians who refused to leave. Another 400 Thebans were kept with Leonidas as hostages. The Thespians stayed entirely on their own will, declaring that they would not abandon Leonidas and his followers. Their leader was Demophilos, son of Diadromes, and as Herodotus writes: "Hence they lived with the Spartans and died with them".

The King would have thought it wise to preserve those Greek troops for future battles against the Persians, but he knew well that the Spartans could never abandon their post on the battlefield. The soldiers who stayed behind were to protect their escape against the Persian cavalry. Herodotus himself believes that Leonidas gave the order because he perceived the allies to be out of heart and unwilling to encounter the danger to which his own mind was made up. He therefore chose to dismiss all troops and save the "glory" for the Spartans.

The little Greek force, attacked from both sides, was cut down to a man except for the Thebans, who surrendered. Leonidas fell in the thickest of the fight, but the Spartans retrieved his body and protected it until their final fall to enemy arrows. Herodotus says that Xerxes ordered to have Leonidas' head cut off and put on a stake and his body crucified, due to his hatred towards the Spartan King. This was considered sacrilegious and an unusual action on the part of Xerxes.[1] The tomb of Leonidas lies today in the northern part of the modern town of Sparta.

A carved lion monument bearing the inscription below was dedicated at his death site commemorating the sacrifice of him and his men:



Go, stranger, and in Lacedaemon tell,
That here, obeying her behests, we fell.
(Simonides' epigram)

Brief History of Sparta
"Scandalous" Spartan Women

King Leonidas

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Aphrodite