Leonidas (Greek: Λεωνίδας - "Lion's son", "Lion-like") was a king of Sparta, the 17th of the Agiad line, one of the sons of King Anaxandridas II of Sparta, who was believed to be a descendant of Heracles. He succeeded his half-brother Cleomenes I, probably in 489 BC or 488 BC, and was married to Cleomenes' daughter, Gorgo. His name was raised to a heroic and legendary status as a result of the events in the Battle of Thermopylae.
As the story goes in 480 BC Leonidas went to Thermopylae with 300 of his finest soldiers, where he was joined by a 6000-strong Greek force, in an attempt to hold the pass of Thermopylae against the hundreds of thousands of Persian soldiers who had invaded from the north of Greece under King Xerxes The Great. Contemporary accounts claim Leonidas took his small personal fighting unit because Spartan religious customs forbade sending an army at that time of year. In addition, 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, one of the lineage of Heracles. 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.
According to Plutarch, Leonidas's wife Gorgo asked him how she could aid his mission. He responded "marry a good man, bear good children, and live a good life."
Several episodes demonstrate the laconic matter-of-fact bravery that famed Leonidas and the Spartans. On the first day of the siege Xerxes demanded the Greeks surrender their arms. Leonidas replied Μολών Λαβέ ("Come and get them"). This phrase has been re-used by generals and politicians throughout history and often repeated in popular culture. Today it is the emblem of the Greek 1st Army Corps.
Leonidas's 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. The King himself remained in the pass with his 300 Spartans and 400 Thebans, along with 700 Thespians who refused to leave. Leonidas's intent was to delay the Persians, sacrificing himself and his men.
The little Greek force, attacked from both sides, was cut down to a man except for the Thebans, who surrendered. One theory is that Leonidas sent the remainder of his men home to preserve troops for future battles. The soldiers who stayed behind were to protect their escape from the Persian cavalry.
Leonidas fell in the thickest of the fight, but the Spartans retrieved his body and protected it until their final fall to enemy arrows. Herodotus says that Leonidas's head was cut off by order of Xerxes and his body crucified, due to his alleged hatred towards the Spartan King. This was considered sacrilegious and an unusual action on the part of Xerxes[1]. Immediately afterwards, he ordered the desecration of Leonidas's body; however, forty years later Leonidas's corpse was returned to the Spartans.
Leonidas 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:
Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie. — (Greek: Ώ ξειν', ἀγγέλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ότι τήδε κείμεθα, τοις κοίνων ρήμασι πειθόμενοι) epitaph at Thermopylae (Simonides's epigram)
Two Spartans survived the conflict. Aristodemus suffered an eye injury and was sent behind the lines, eventually ordered back to Sparta with the retreating allies by the King. Pantites was sent by Leonidas to raise support in Thessaly but returned to Thermopylae only after the battle's conclusion. Pantites hanged himself in disgrace after being shunned as a "trembler".
Source--Wikipediathe free encyclopedia
