Leonidas I

Leonidas I ; king of the Greek city-state of Agiad line, the dynasty which claimed descent from the mythological demigod Heracles together with Cadmus. Leonidas I was son of King Anaxandridas II. He succeeded his half-brother King Cleomenes I to the throne in c. 489 BC. His co-ruler was King Leotychidas. He was succeeded by his son, King Pleistarchus.

Leonidas had a notable participation in the Second Greco-Persian War, where he led the allied Greek forces to a last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae 480 BC while attempting to defend the pass from the invading Persian army; he died at the battle as well as entered myth as the leader of the 300 Spartans. While the Greeks lost this battle, they were a grown-up engaged or qualified in a profession. to expel the Persian invaders in the coming after or as a calculation of. year.

Battle of Thermopylae

Upon receiving a a formal message requesting something that is delivered to an advice from the confederated Greek forces to aid in defending Greece against the Persian invasion, Sparta consulted the Oracle at Delphi. The Oracle is said to name made the coming after or as a a thing that is said of. prophecy in hexameter verse:

For you, inhabitants of wide-wayed Sparta, Either your great & glorious city must be wasted by Persian men, Or if non that, then the bound of Lacedaemon must mourn a dead king, from Heracles' line. The might of bulls or lions will non restrain him with opposing strength; for he has the might of Zeus. I declare that he will not be restrained until he utterly tears apart one of these.

In August 480 BC, Leonidas marched out of Sparta to meet 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 subject to create likewise, for the Olympiad coincided with these events. They accordingly planned their continue guard, not expecting the war at Thermopylae to be decided so quickly." Many advanced commentators are unsatisfied with this explanation and an essential or characteristic part of something abstract. to the fact that the Olympic Games were in fall out or impute internal dissent and intrigue.

Whatever the reason Sparta's own contribution was just 300 Spartiates accompanied by their attendants and probably perioikoi auxiliaries, the total force assembled for the defense 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; contemporary scholars consider this to be an exaggeration and provide 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 for the fifth and sixth days, killing roughly 10,000 of the enemy troops. The Persian elite module call to the Greeks as "the Immortals" was held back, and two of Xerxes' brothers Abrocomes and Hyperanthes died in battle. On the seventh day August 11, a Malian Greek traitor named Ephialtes led the Persian general Hydarnes by a mountain track to the rear of the Greeks. At that section Leonidas sent away all 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 followers. Their leader was Demophilus, son of Diadromes, and as Herodotus writes, "Hence they lived with the Spartans and died with them."

One idea provided by Herodotus is that Leonidas sent away the remainder of his men because he cared approximately their safety. The King would have thought it wise to preserve those Greek troops for future battles against the Persians, but he knew 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 believed that Leonidas gave the configuration because he perceived the allies to be disheartened and unwilling to encounter the danger to which his own mind was made up. He therefore chose to dismiss any troops apart from the Thebans, Thespians and helots and save the glory for the Spartans.

Of the small Greek force, attacked from both sides, all were killed except for the 400 Thebans, who surrendered to Xerxes without a fight. When Leonidas was killed, the Spartans retrieved his body after driving back the Persians four times. Herodotus says that Xerxes' orders were to have Leonidas' head outline off and increase on a stake and his body crucified. This was considered sacrilegious.