Editing Leonidas I

{{Short description|King of Sparta from c. 489 BC to 480 BC}}
{{Redirect|Leonidas|other uses|Leonidas (disambiguation)}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2025}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2025}}
{{Infobox royalty
| name         = Leonidas I
| image        = LeonidaSpartaMonumento.jpg
| image_size   = 225
| caption      = Statue of Leonidas in [[Sparta, Laconia|Sparta]]
| succession   = [[List of kings of Sparta|King of Sparta]]
| reign        = 489–480 BC
| native_lang1 = Greek
| native_lang1_name1 = {{lang|grc|Λεωνίδᾱς}}
| birth_date   = {{circa|540 BC}}
| birth_place  = [[Sparta]], [[Ancient Greece|Greece]]
| death_date   = 11 August 480 BC (59–60)
| death_place  = [[Thermopylae]], [[Ancient Greece|Greece]]
| predecessor  = [[Cleomenes I]]
| successor    = [[Pleistarchus]]
| queen        = [[Gorgo, Queen of Sparta|Gorgo]]
| royal house  = [[Agiad]]
| father       = [[Anaxandridas II]]
| mother       = 
| issue        = [[Pleistarchus]]
| religion     = [[Ancient Greek religion|Greek polytheism]]
}}
'''Leonidas I''' ({{IPAc-en|l|i|ə|ˈ|n|aɪ|d|ə|s|,_|-|d|æ|s}}; {{langx|grc|Λεωνίδας}}, ''Leōnídas''; born {{circa|540 BC}}; died 11 August 480 BC) was [[List of kings of Sparta|king]] of the [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greek]] [[Polis|city-state]] of [[Sparta]]. He was the son of king [[Anaxandridas II]] and the [[List of kings of Sparta#Agiad dynasty|17th]] king of the [[Agiad dynasty]], a Spartan royal house which claimed [[Heracleidae|descent]] from the mythical [[demigod]] [[Heracles]]. Leonidas I ascended to the throne in {{circa|489 BC}}, succeeding his half-brother king [[Cleomenes I]]. He [[Diarchy#Sparta|ruled jointly]] along with king [[Leotychidas]] until his death in 480 BC, when he was succeeded by his son, [[Pleistarchus]]. 

At the [[Second Persian invasion of Greece| Second Greco-Persian War]], Leonidas led the allied Greek forces in a [[last stand]] at the [[Battle of Thermopylae]] (480 BC), attempting to defend the pass from the invading Persian army, and was killed early during the third and last day of the battle. Leonidas entered myth as a hero and the leader of the 300 Spartans who died in battle at Thermopylae. While the Greeks lost this battle, they were able to expel the Persian invaders in the following year.

==Life==
According to [[Herodotus]], Leonidas' mother was not only his father's wife, but also his father's niece and had been barren for so long that the [[ephor]]s, the five annually elected [[executive (government)|administrators]] of the Spartan constitution, tried to prevail upon King [[Anaxandridas II]] to set her aside and take another wife.  Anaxandridas refused, claiming his wife was blameless, 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]] (one of the [[Seven Sages of Greece]]), promptly bore a son, [[Cleomenes I|Cleomenes]]. However, one year after Cleomenes' birth, Anaxandridas' first wife also gave birth to a son, [[Dorieus]]. Leonidas was the second son of Anaxandridas' first wife, and either the elder brother or twin of [[Cleombrotus (regent)|Cleombrotus]].<ref>Herodotus, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+5.39 5.39–41]; Jones, p. 48.</ref> Leonidas' name means "descendant of Leon", and he was named after his grandfather [[Leon of Sparta]]. The [[Doric Greek]] suffix -ίδας, with corresponding Attic form -ίδης, mainly means "descendant of".<ref>MINON, S. (2013). Names, Personal, Classical Greece . In Roger Bagnall, Andrew Erskine Et Alii (Ed.), Wiley's Encyclopedia of Ancient History, 4686–4687.</ref> But literally his name can also mean "son of a lion", as the name Leon means "lion" in Greek.

King Anaxandridas II died in c. 524 BC,<ref name="Morris 35">Morris, 35</ref> and Cleomenes succeeded to the throne sometime between then and 516 BC.<ref>{{cite book |first=W. G. |last=Forrest |title=A History of Sparta 950–192 B.C. |location=New York |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=1968 |page=85 }}</ref> 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.<ref>Herodotus, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text doc=Hdt.+5.42 5.42–48]</ref>  Leonidas' relationship with his bitterly antagonistic elder brothers is unknown, but he married Cleomenes' daughter, [[Gorgo, Queen of Sparta|Gorgo]], sometime before coming to the throne in 490 BC.<ref>Paul Cartledge, ''The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece'', New York, Vintage Books, 2002, p. 126.</ref>

Leonidas was heir to the Agiad throne (successor of [[Cleomenes I]]) and a full citizen (''[[Spartiate|homoios]]'') at the time of the [[Battle of Sepeia]] against [[Argos, Peloponnese|Argos]] (c. 494 BC).<ref name="MaHazel2013">{{cite book|last1=Ma|first1=Former Fellow at Cambridge Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh and Vice Chancellor John Hazel|last2=Hazel|first2=John|title=Who's Who in the Greek World|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hJUM8YIeVzQC&pg=PA60|date= 2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-80224-1|page=60}}</ref> 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 [[Battle of Marathon|Marathon]] (490 BC).
[[File:Spartians throw Persian envoys into a well.jpg|thumb|left|The Spartans throw Persian envoys into a well.]]
[[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.'"<ref>Plutarch on Sparta, Sayings of Spartans, Leonidas son of Anaxandridas, #1</ref> 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 Persian invasion of Greece]] in 481 BC.<ref name="Oman1898"/> This was not simply a tribute to Sparta's military prowess:  The probability that the coalition wanted Leonidas personally for his capability as a military leader is underlined by the fact that just two years after his death, the coalition preferred Athenian leadership to the leadership of either [[Leotychidas]] or Leonidas' successor (as regent for his still under-aged son) [[Pausanias (general)|Pausanias]]. The rejection of Leotychidas and Pausanias was not a reflection on Spartan arms. Sparta's military reputation had never stood in higher regard, nor was Sparta less powerful in 478 BC than it had been in 481 BC.<ref name="Oman1898"/>

This selection of Leonidas to lead the defence of Greece against Xerxes' invasion led to Leonidas' death in the [[Battle of Thermopylae]] in 480 BC.<ref name="Oman1898">{{cite book|last=Oman|first=Charles|title=A History of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Death of Alexander the Great|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZcMXAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA205|year=1898|publisher=Longmans, Green, and Company|pages=199–206|chapter=The death of Leonidas}}</ref>

===Battle of Thermopylae===
{{Main|Battle of Thermopylae}}
[[File:Leónidas en las Termópilas, por Jacques-Louis David.jpg|thumb|''Leonidas at Thermopylae''  (1814) by [[Jacques-Louis David]], who chose the subject in the aftermath of the [[French Revolution]] as a model of "civic duty and self-sacrifice", but also as a contemplation of loss and death, with Leonidas quietly poised and [[heroic nudity|heroically nude]]<ref>Jack Johnson, "David and Literature," in ''Jacques-Louis David: New Perspectives'' (Rosemont, 2006), pp. 85–86 ''et passim''.</ref>]]
Upon receiving a request from the confederated Greek forces to aid in defending Greece against the Persian invasion, Sparta consulted the [[Pythia|Oracle]] at [[Delphi]].  The Oracle is said to have made the following [[prophecy]] in [[hexameter]] verse:

{{quote|<poem>For you, inhabitants of wide-wayed Sparta,
Either your great and glorious city must be wasted by Persian men,
Or if not that, then the bound of Lacedaemon must mourn a dead king, from Heracles' line.
The might of bulls or lions will not 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.<ref name="7.220">Herodotus, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+7.220 7.220]</ref></poem>}}

In August 480 BC, Leonidas marched out of Sparta to meet [[Xerxes I of Persia|Xerxes]]' army at Thermopylae with a small force of 1,200 men (900 [[helots]] and 300 Spartan [[hoplite]]s), 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."<ref>Herodotus, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+7.206 7:206]</ref> Many modern commentators are dissatisfied with this explanation and point to the fact that the [[Ancient Olympic Games|Olympic Games]] were in progress or impute internal dissent and intrigue.

Whatever the reason Sparta's own contribution was just 300 Spartiates (accompanied by their attendants and probably [[perioeci|perioikoi]] auxiliaries), 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.<ref>{{cite book | last=De Souza | first=Philip | title=The Greek and Persian Wars 499–386 BC | publisher=Osprey Publishing | location=Oxford | year=2003 | page=41 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=V5BeCF82gwUC&pg=PA3 | isbn=9781841763583 }}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

[[File:Achaemenid king killing a Greek hoplite.jpg|thumb|left|Achaemenid king killing a Greek [[hoplite]]. Circa 500 BC–475 BC, at the time of [[Xerxes I]]. [[Metropolitan Museum of Art]].]]
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 "[[Persian Immortals|the Immortals]]" was held back, and two of Xerxes' brothers (Abrocomes and Hyperanthes) died in battle.<ref>{{cite book | last = Herodotus (ed. George Rawlinson) | title = The History of Herodotus | publisher = D. Appleman and Company | year = 1885 | location = New York | pages = bk. 7 | url = http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Herother.html | access-date = 21 March 2010 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20091217212756/http://www.shsu.edu/~his_ncp/Herother.html | archive-date = 17 December 2009 | url-status=dead }}</ref> On the seventh day (11 August), a [[Malians (Greek tribe)|Malian Greek]] traitor named [[Ephialtes of Trachis|Ephialtes]] led the Persian general [[Hydarnes II|Hydarnes]] by a mountain track to the rear of the Greeks.<ref>{{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Leonidas |volume=16 |page=455 |first=Marcus Niebuhr |last=Tod}}</ref><ref>{{cite book | last = Herodotus (ed. Henry Cary) | title = The Histories of Herodotus | publisher = D. Appleton and Company | year = 1904 | location = New York | page = 438 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=QsIcxGrq6QAC&q=History+of+Herodotus }}</ref> At that point Leonidas sent away most of the Greek troops and remained in the pass with his 300 Spartans, 900 helots, 400 [[Thebes, Greece|Thebans]] and 700 [[Thespiae|Thespians]]. The Thespians stayed entirely of their own will, declaring that they would not abandon Leonidas and his followers. Their leader was [[Demophilus of Thespiae|Demophilus]], son of Diadromes, and as Herodotus writes, "Hence they lived with the Spartans and died with them."

One theory provided by Herodotus is that Leonidas sent away the remainder of his men because he cared about 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 believed that Leonidas gave the order 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 all the troops except the Thebans, Thespians and helots and save the glory for the Spartans.<ref name="7.220"/>

Of the small Greek force, which was 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 cut off and put on a stake and his body [[crucifixion|crucified]]. This was considered [[sacrilege|sacrilegious]].<ref>Herodotus, [https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Hdt.+7.238 7.238]</ref>

==Legacy==
A [[hero cult]] of Leonidas survived in Sparta until the [[Antonine dynasty|Antonine era]] (2nd century AD).<ref>''Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics'', Part 12 By James Hastings p. 655. {{ISBN|0-567-09489-8}}</ref> Leonideia (λεωνιδεῖα) were solemnities celebrated every year in Sparta in honour of Leonidas and only Spartans were allowed to take part. The contest was held opposite the theatre at Sparta where there were the two sepulchral monuments of Pausanias and Leonidas.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0063:alphabetic+letter=L:entry+group=2:entry=leonideia-cn|title=A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities (1890), LA´BARUM, LEONIDEIA, LEONIDEIA|website=www.perseus.tufts.edu}}</ref>

===Modern culture===
{{Further|Battle of Thermopylae in popular culture}}
{{anchor|Leonidas monument}}
{{multiple image|perrow = 2|total_width=200
| image1 = Leonidas.jpg
| image2 = LeonidaSpartaMonumento.jpg
| image3 = 3420 - Milano - Ernesto Bazzaro (1859-1937) - Monumento a Felice Cavallotti (1906) - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto 23-Jun-2007.jpg
| footer = Statues of Leonidas at [[Thermopylae]] (top left), in [[Sparti (municipality)|Sparta]] (top right), and depicted on top of the monument to [[Felice Cavallotti]] in [[Milan]], created by [[Ernesto Bazzaro]] in 1906.
}}
A bronze [[Statue of Leonidas (Thermopylae)|statue of Leonidas]] was erected at Thermopylae in 1955.<ref name="RingWatson2013">{{cite book|last1=Ring|first1=Trudy|last2=Watson|first2=Noelle|last3=Schellinger|first3=Paul|title=Southern Europe: International Dictionary of Historic Places|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qcr9AQAAQBAJ&pg=PA695|year=2013|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-134-25958-8|page=695}}</ref> A sign, under the statue, reads simply: "[[Molon labe|ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ]]" ("Come and take them"), which was Leonidas' [[Laconic phrase|laconic reply]] when Xerxes offered to spare the lives of the Spartans if they gave up their arms.<ref>[[Plutarch]], ''Apophthegmata Laconica,'' 225c.</ref> [[Statue of Leonidas (Sparta)|Another statue]], also with the inscription ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ, was erected in [[Sparti (municipality)|Sparta]] in 1969.<ref name="lakonikostypos.gr2023">{{Cite web |url=https://www.lakonikostypos.gr/epikairothta/item/166499-ta-apokalyptiria-tou-agalmatos-tou-leonida-to-1970-sti-sparti |date=30 May 2023 |access-date=5 July 2024 |website=Λακωνικός Τύπος |last=Περγαντής |first=Ηλίας |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240705021112/https://lakonikos.gr/epikairothta/item/166499-ta-apokalyptiria-tou-agalmatos-tou-leonida-to-1970-sti-sparti |archive-date=5 July 2024 |url-status=live |language=el |script-title=el:Τα αποκαλυπτήρια του αγάλματος του Λεωνίδα το 1970 στη Σπάρτη |trans-title=The unveiling of the statue of Leonidas in 1970 in Sparta}}</ref><!-- It was designed in 1966, the inscription on it is dated 1968, it was installed in 1969 and an unveiling ceremony was held in 1970. -->

Another monument to Leonidis was erected in Brunswick, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, in November 2009. Brunswick is known as "the suburb of the Spartans" due to an influx of migrants from the Laconian region of Greece during the 1950s and 1960s.<ref>{{Cite web |title=King Leonidas |url=https://www.monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/culture/community/display/96584-king-leonidas- |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240725152104/https://www.monumentaustralia.org.au/themes/culture/community/display/96584-king-leonidas- |archive-date=25 July 2024 |access-date=1 February 2025 |website=Monument Australia}}</ref>

''Leonidas'' was the name of an epic poem written by [[Richard Glover (poet)|Richard Glover]], which originally appeared in 1737. It went on to appear in four other editions, being expanded from 9 books to 12.<ref name="Jung2008">{{cite book|last=Jung|first=Sandro|title=David Mallet, Anglo-Scot: Poetry, Patronage, and Politics in the Age of Union|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GLCmdb9LCxAC&pg=PA94|year=2008|publisher=Associated University Presse|isbn=978-0-87413-005-8|pages=94–95}}</ref> He is a central figure in [[Steven Pressfield]]'s novel ''[[Gates of Fire]]'',<ref name="Pressfield2007">{{cite book|last=Pressfield|first=Steven|title=Gates of Fire|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vcxlHkUGf_wC|year= 2007|publisher=Random House Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-553-90405-5}}</ref> and appears as the [[protagonist]] of [[Frank Miller]]'s 1998 comic book series ''[[300 (comics)|300]]''. It presents a fictionalised version of Leonidas and the Battle of Thermopylae, as does the [[300 (film)|2006 feature film adapted from it]].<ref name="CombeBoyle2013">{{cite book|last1=Combe|first1=K.|last2=Boyle|first2=B.|title=Masculinity and Monstrosity in Contemporary Hollywood Films|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=daNEAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA83|year=2013|publisher=Springer|isbn=978-1-137-35982-7|pages=83–84}}</ref>

In cinema, Leonidas has been portrayed by: [[Richard Egan (actor)|Richard Egan]] in the 1962 epic ''[[The 300 Spartans]]'';<ref name="Nikoloutsos2013">{{cite book|last=Nikoloutsos|first=Konstantinos P.|title=Ancient Greek Women in Film|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=h0cXAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA261|date=2013|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-967892-1|pages=260–261}}</ref> [[Gerard Butler]] in the 2006 film ''[[300 (film)|300]]'', inspired by the [[graphic novel]] of the [[300 (comics)|same name]] by [[Frank Miller]] and [[Lynn Varley]] ([[Tyler Neitzel]] portrayed Leonidas as a young man);<ref name="Spielvogel2014">{{cite book|last=Spielvogel|first=Jackson J.|title=Western Civilization: Volume A: To 1500|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LceiAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT104|year= 2014|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-1-285-98299-1|page=104}}</ref> [[Sean Maguire]] in the 2008 film ''[[Meet the Spartans]]'', a parody of the 2006 film.
{{-}}

==Notes==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==References==
* Herodotus, ''Herodotus, with an English translation by A. D. Godley''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1920.
* Jones, A. H. M. ''Sparta'', New York, Barnes and Nobles, 1967
* Morris, Ian Macgregor, ''Leonidas: Hero of Thermopylae'', New York, The Rosen Publishing Group, 2004.

== External links ==
* {{Wikiquote inline|Leonidas I}}
* {{Commons category inline}}

{{S-start}}
{{Succession box|title=[[Kings of Sparta#Agiad dynasty|Agiad King of Sparta]]|before=[[Cleomenes I]]|after=[[Pleistarchus]]|years=489–480 BC}}
{{S-end}}
{{Kings of Sparta}}
{{Ancient Greece topics}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leonidas 01}}
[[Category:Leonidas I| ]]
[[Category:6th-century BC births]]
[[Category:480 BC deaths]]
[[Category:5th-century BC monarchs]]
[[Category:5th-century BC Spartans]]
[[Category:Agiad kings of Sparta]]
[[Category:Ancient Greeks killed in battle]]
[[Category:Battle of Thermopylae]]
[[Category:Culture of Greece]]
[[Category:Monarchs killed in action]]
[[Category:Spartans of the Greco-Persian Wars]]