Leonidas I
King of Sparta who fell at Thermopylae leading a last stand against the Persian invasion.
de:Benutzer:Ticinese · via Wikipedia: Leonidas I · CC BY-SA 3.0
Leonidas I was a hero-king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, and a son of King Anaxandridas II.[1] He is notable for his leadership at the Battle of Thermopylae, where he died in 480 BC.[1][2]
Quick Facts
- Reign
- 489–480 BC
- Born
- c. 540 BC
- Birthplace
- Sparta, Greece
- Died
- 11 August 480 BC (59–60)
- Place of death
- Thermopylae, Greece
- Predecessor
- Cleomenes I
- Successor
- Pleistarchus
- Queen
- Gorgo
Facts from the source article.
Life and work
According to Herodotus, Leonidas's mother was both her husband's wife and his niece, and had been barren for so long that the ephors tried to make Anaxandridas set her aside.[3] That second wife bore a son, Cleomenes, and a year later the first wife bore Dorieus.[3] Leonidas married Cleomenes's daughter, Gorgo, sometime before coming to the throne in 490 BC.[4] In August 480 BC, he marched to Thermopylae with 1,200 men, joined by other Greeks to form an army of 7,000.[5]
He remained with 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians, 400 Thebans, and a few others, and was killed in the battle.[1] The ephors permitted Anaxandridas to marry a second woman while keeping his first wife, after he declined to divorce her on the grounds that she was innocent.[3] In 481 BC, Leonidas was selected to command the allied Greek forces that were preparing to oppose the second Persian invasion of Greece.[2]
What the cited sources add
The Monument Australia account states that Leonidas was believed in mythology to be a descendant of Heracles.[1] The monument was erected by Moreland City Council and the Pallaconian Brotherhood in memory of those who sacrificed for freedom and democracy.[1] In 1969, a second statue featuring the same phrase was erected in Sparta.[6]
References
- "King Leonidas", Monument Australia. facts only, no text reused. monumentaustralia.org
- Wikipedia, "Leonidas I" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Oman, "A History of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Death of Alexander the Great", Longmans, Green, and Company, 1898, p. 199–206 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Leonidas I" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Herodotus, 5.39–41; Jones, p. 48. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Leonidas I" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Herodotus, doc=Hdt.+5.42 5.42–48; Paul Cartledge, The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece, New York, Vintage Books, 2002, p. 126. (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Leonidas I" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Herodotus, 7:206 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Leonidas I" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Ring, "Southern Europe: International Dictionary of Historic Places", Routledge, 2013, p. 695; Plutarch, Apophthegmata Laconica, 225c.; Περγαντής, Λακωνικός Τύπος, 30 May 2023 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Leonidas I (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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