Leonidas I

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Leonidas at Thermopylae, by Jacques-Louis David (1814)

Leonidas (Greek: Λεωνίδας - "Lion's son", "Lion-like") was a king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line. He was one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, descendant of Heracles. He succeeded, probably in 489 or 488 BC, his half-brother Cleomenes I, whose daughter Gorgo he married.

In 480 the ephors sent Leonidas with the 300 men of an all-sire unit (soldiers who had sons to carry on their bloodline) and 6700 allies to hold the pass of Thermopylae against the army of Xerxes of Persia. (see Battle of Thermopylae). According to a contemporary story, Leonidas took only a small force because he was deliberately going to his doom: an oracle had foretold that Sparta could be saved only by the death of one of its kings. 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.

Several anecdotes demonstrate the laconic matter-of-fact bravery that Leonidas and the Spartans were famed for even in the ancient world. On the first day of the siege, when Xerxes demanded the Greeks surrender their arms, Leonidas is said to have replied Μολών Λαβέ ("Come and get them"). And on the third day, the king is reputed to have exhorted his men to eat a hearty breakfast, because that night they would dine in Hades.

Leonidas' men repulsed the frontal attacks of the Persians for the first two days, but when the Malian Ephialtes led the Persian general Hydarnes by a mountain track to the rear of the Greeks, Leonidas divided his army. He himself remained in the pass with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians and 400 Thebans. His intent was to delay the Persians, sacrificing himself and his men.

The little Greek army, attacked from both sides, was cut down to a man except for the Thebans, who surrendered. Another theory is that Leonidas sent the remainder of the army home in an effort to preserve troops for the main battles of the war. The soldiers who stayed behind were to cover their escape so the Persian cavalry would not overrun the rear of the escaping troops.

Leonidas fell in the thickest of the fight; the Spartans attempted to retrieve his body, but given the numbers they faced, the king's body was taken by the Persians. Herodotus says that Leonidas' head was cut off by Xerxes' order and his body crucified. This was considered sacrilege towards Leonidas, and unusual action on Xerxes' part. It was said that the Persian king was furious that Leonidas and his three hundred had killed so many of Xerxes' soldiers, including two of his own relatives. Immediately after he ordered the desecration of Leonidas' body, however, Xerxes felt remorse and, forty years later, Leonidas' corpse was returned to the Spartans.

He was buried with full honours, including a very un-Spartan display of wailing and mourning (Spartans normally accepted death in battle as a matter of course and disapproved of outward grieving, but the oracle at Delphi had ordered this along with the sacrifice of a Spartan king to preserve Sparta). A carved lion monument bearing the inscription below was dedicated at his death site commemorating the sacrifice of him and his men:

Our knowledge of the circumstances are too slight to enable us to judge Leonidas' strategy, but his heroism and devotion secured him an almost unique place in the imagination not only of his own time but also of succeeding times.