Leonidas
Portrait Painting Of King of Sparta,
Leonidas, 530-480 B.C., was a king of the city-state of Sparta from about 490 B.C. until his death at the Battle of Thermopylae against the Persian army in 480 B.C.
Although Leonidas lost the battle, his death at Thermopylae was seen as a heroic sacrifice because he sent most of his army away when he realized that the Persians had outmaneuvered him.
Three hundred of his fellow Spartans stayed with him to fight and die.
Almost everything that is known about Leonidas comes from the work of the Greek historian Herodotus. 484-c. 425 B.C. .
Plutarch ,also, has recorded the following: “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.'”
As the product of the agoge, Leonidas is unlikely to have been referring to his royal blood alone but rather suggesting that he had, like his brother Dorieus, proven superior capability in the competitive environment of Spartan training and society, and that he believed this made him qualified to rule.
Eduard Isaac Asser,
1855
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