The Spartan King Leonidas has evolved into a curiosity in the great commander’s pantheon. The ancient Greeks remembered him for his heroic stand, which was against the Persians at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE. Understanding the bleakness of the hour, he sent many of his troops in retreat and with his 300-warrior elite fighting guard withstood the Persian Army for two days, battling valiantly to the last warrior.

He became the object of Spartan hero cult worship, and he stands as the personification of Greek bravery against overwhelming odds. He contributed to the belief that Spartan warriors never surrender. His primary campaigns included the Persian War from 490 to 480 BCE. His principle battle was Thermopylae where he died with 300 Spartans and 1,000 Greeks.

KING LEONIDAS’ COMBAT EXPERIENCE

King Leonidas was King Anaxandridas’ son and his successor to the Agiad throne in Sparta after his half-brother Cleomenes 1st went insane in 490 BC. Leonidas married Cleomenes’ daughter Gorgo, and probably adopted Cleomenes’ policies. The Greeks placed him in command of an expeditionary force of 300 Spartan hoplites, where he led a force of 7,000 Greeks north to hold the pass of Thermopylae to delay King Xerxes’ invading Persian Army in July 480 BC. Leonidas and his Greek warriors, fighting with inferior numbers, courageously held the pass for three days against the numerically superior Persian Army, until a Greek traitor, named Ephialtes, showed the Persian

s another route through the mountains to reach behind the Greek position. Later, the Persian Army surrounded Leonidas, his 300 Spartans, and the 1,000 others Greeks who decided to remain and fight with him.

Leonidas fought until he himself was killed along with his entire command, his Spartans dying in defense of his dead body; when the Persians were defeated at Plataea in 479 BC and withdrew from Greece, a memorial was erected at the battle site with an inscription reading: “Tell them in Sparta, passerby that here, obedient to their laws, we lie.”

LEONIDAS LEGACY AT THERMOPYLAE

If Leonidas and his hoplite warriors had quickly crumbled under the wheels of Xerxes’ Persian military juggernaut, it appears likely that the celebrated course of Greco-Roman history would have been very different. The magnificent cultural, religious, philosophic, and scientific accomplishments facilitated by a Western style democracy in the centuries following Thermopylae would have never occurred. However, the irony in Leonidas being recognized as the savior of Western civilization is that Leonidas grew up in a non-democratic Spartan culture. Sparta was the most illiberal of the Greek City states. PRIMARY SOURCES: Delbruck, Hans; History of the Art of War Within the Framework of Political History; Antiquity Publications, 1975. Lanning, LT. COL. (RET.) Michael Lee AND Bob Rosenburgh; THE BATTLE 100; Sourcebooks: New York, 2003. Zimmerman, Dwight Jon; The Book Of War; Tess Press Publications, 2008. Zimmerman, Dwight Jon; The Book Of Weapons; Tess Press Publications, 2009.