Leonidas I

Lore & Background

According to Herodotus, Leonidas's mother was not only his father's wife, but also his father's niece and had been barren for so long that the ephors tried to prevail upon King Anaxandridas II to set her aside and take another wife. Anaxandridas refused, whereupon the ephors agreed to allow him to take a second wife without setting aside his first. This second wife, a descendant of Chilon of Sparta, promptly bore a son, Cleomenes. However, one year after Cleomenes's birth, Anaxandridas's first wife also gave birth to a son, Dorieus. Leonidas was the second son of Anaxandridas's first wife, and either the elder brother or twin of Cleombrotus. Leonidas's name means 'descendant of Leon', and he was named after his grandfather Leon of Sparta. King Anaxandridas II died in c. 524 BC, and Cleomenes succeeded to the throne in sometime between then and 516 BC. Dorieus was so outraged that the Spartans had preferred his half-brother over himself that he found it impossible to remain in Sparta. He made one unsuccessful attempt to set up a colony in Africa and, when this failed, sought his fortune in Sicily, where after initial successes he was killed. Leonidas's relationship with his bitterly antagonistic elder brothers is unknown, but he married Cleomenes's daughter, Gorgo, sometime before coming to the throne in 490 BC. Leonidas was heir to the Agiad throne and a full citizen at the time of the Battle of Sepeia against Argos (c. 494 BC). Likewise, he was a full citizen when the Persians sought submission from Sparta and met with vehement rejection in 492/491 BC. His elder half-brother, King Cleomenes, had already been deposed on grounds of purported insanity, and had fled into exile when Athens sought assistance against the First Persian invasion of Greece, that ended at Marathon (490 BC). Plutarch wrote, 'When someone said to him: "Except for being king you are not at all superior to us," Leonidas son of Anaxandridas and brother of Cleomenes replied: "But were I not better than you, I should not be king."' The product of the agoge, Leonidas was unlikely to have been referring to his royal blood alone but rather suggesting that, like his brother Dorieus, he had proved himself superior in the competitive environment of Spartan training and society, thus making him qualified to rule. Leonidas was chosen to lead the combined Greek forces determined to resist the Second

Reader's Guide

In August 480 BC, Leonidas marched out of Sparta to meet Xerxes's army at Thermopylae with a small force of 1,200 men (900 helots and 300 Spartan hoplites), where he was joined by forces from other Greek city-states, who put themselves under his command to form an army of 7,000 strong. There are various theories on why Leonidas was accompanied by such a small force of hoplites. According to Herodotus, 'the Spartans sent the men with Leonidas on ahead so that the rest of the allies would see them and march with no fear of defeat, instead of siding with the Persians like the others if they learned that the Spartans were delaying. After completing their festival, the Carneia, they left their garrison at Sparta and marched in full force towards Thermopylae. The rest of the allies planned to do likewise, for the Olympiad coincided with these events. They accordingly sent their advance guard, not expecting the war at Thermopylae to be decided so quickly.' Many modern commentators are dissatisfied with this explanation and point to the fact that the Olympic Games were in progress or to impute internal dissent and intrigue. Whatever the reason Sparta's own contribution was just 300 Spartiates, the total force assembled for the defence of the pass of Thermopylae came to something between four and seven thousand Greeks. They faced a Persian army who had invaded from the north of Greece under Xerxes I. Herodotus stated that this army consisted of over two million men; modern scholars consider this to be an exaggeration and give estimates ranging from 70,000 to 300,000. Xerxes waited four days to attack, hoping the Greeks would disperse. Finally, on the fifth day the Persians attacked. Leonidas and the Greeks repulsed the Persians' frontal attacks during the fifth and sixth days, killing roughly 10,000 of the enemy troops. The Persian elite unit known to the Greeks as 'the Immortals' was held back, and two of Xerxes's brothers (Abrocomes and Hyperanthes) died in battle. On the seventh day (11 August), a Malian Greek traitor named Ephialtes led the Persian general Hydarnes by a mountain track to the rear of the Greeks. At that point Leonidas sent away most of the Greek troops and remained in the pass with his 300 Spartans, 900 helots, 400 Thebans and 700 Thespians. The Thespians stayed entirely of their own will, declaring that they would not abandon Leonidas and his fol

Did You Know?

• Leonidas's name means 'descendant of Leon', and he was named after his grandfather Leon of Sparta.
• The Oracle at Delphi gave a prophecy in hexameter verse before Leonidas marched to Thermopylae.
• A hero cult of Leonidas survived in Sparta until the Antonine era (2nd century AD), with annual solemnities called Leonideia.
• A bronze statue of Leonidas was erected at Thermopylae in 1955 with the inscription 'ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ' ('Come and take them').

Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)

"Leonidas (Λεωνίδας) (c. 489 BC – 480 BC) was a king of Sparta, the seventeenth of the Agiad line." — Leonidas I "Marry a good man, and bear good children." — Leonidas I "Variant translation: Marry a good man, and have good children." — Leonidas I