Why is leonidas important

He proposed that he and his army would stay back to cover their escape, while the other Greeks would leave to protect the rest of Greece from a future Persian invasion.

Therefore, Leonidas with his Spartans and Thespians, who refused to leave, stayed back to fight the huge Persian army. They were all killed in the battlefield, in this deathtrap, protecting theie homeland and their values.

After all, it was disgraceful for a Spartan to return to Sparta beaten in war. A Spartan would either return from war as a winner, or he should not return at all.

Today, a modern monument lies on the site of the battle in Thermopylae to remind of this courageous action, while the tomb of this legendary king lies in his homeland, Sparta.

Want to discover more famous people? Next personality: Solon, the lawmaker. Contact us Contact us. Sign In. Famous quotes. Archaic Greece saw advances in art, poetry and technology, but is known as the age in which the polis, or city-state, was The two most powerful city-states in ancient Greece, Athens and Sparta, went to war with each other from to B.

The Peloponnesian War marked a significant power shift in ancient Greece, favoring Sparta, and also ushered in a period of regional decline that signaled the The classical period was an era of war and conflict—first between the Greeks and the Persians, then between the The story of the Trojan War—the Bronze Age conflict between the kingdoms of Troy and Mycenaean Greece—straddles the history and mythology of ancient Greece and inspired the greatest writers of antiquity, from Homer, Herodotus and Sophocles to Virgil.

Since the 19th-century By turns charismatic and ruthless, brilliant and power hungry, diplomatic and The so-called golden age of Athenian culture flourished under the leadership of Pericles B. Pericles transformed his Live TV.

This Day In History. History Vault. Training as a Hoplite Leonidas was the son of the Spartan king Anaxandrides died c. Recommended for you. How the Troubles Began in Northern Ireland.

Marble h oplite statue , thought to be Leonidas, 5th c. Leonidas — meaning Lion Like - is a name that resonates with many. Leonidas was born in about BCE, in Sparta, which was at the time a strictly controlled militarised society with a structured social system. These practices included vigorous military drills, weapons training, athletics and hunting.

Endurance and competitive games were important because most were group activities, demanding loyalty to and sacrifice for the collective. The hoplite soldier of the day fought the enemy face to face with a round bronze shield, spear, iron short sword xiphos and a vicious hacking weapon in the form of a thick, curved iron sword kopis.

His other defence in battle was the phalanx , which meant that his shield overlapped with that of the soldier next to him in a tight line. Even the spectacular events surrounding his epic struggle in B. The chief source is the famous Greek historian, Herodotus, but even here Leonidas is given relatively scant attention, and modern scholars have been forced to critically reexamine each of Herodotus's sentences to reconstruct more telling and at times more accurate detail.

Leonidas was born on Spartan territory in the Peloponnesian Peninsula in southern Greece probably between the years B. He was the son of the Spartan king Anaxandrides and was descended from the Greek cult hero Heracles. However, during his youth and early manhood, Leonidas could not have expected to become king because of a peculiar set of circumstances. When Anaxandrides' first wife did not conceive during the early years of the marriage, Spartan elders compelled him to take a second wife contrary to Spartan custom.

The firstborn—and only—child of Anaxandrides' second union was a male, Cleomenes, who became heir to the throne. In the meantime, the first wife conceived three sons; Dorieus, Leonidas, and Cleombrotus, respectively.

The fates were ironical. Cleomenes was psychologically impaired and possibly mentally handicapped, while Dorieus, who would have been heir apparent under more normal circumstances, excelled in "manly quality. Unable to live under his brother's rule, Dorieus set sail for distant lands and embarked on a series of adventures, resulting in his death. When Cleomenes himself died, probably in B. The line of succession suddenly fell on Leonidas who had married Cleomenes' daughter and, consequently, his own half-niece.

Leonidas was only one of Sparta's kings; customarily, this Greek city-state had two. During Cleomenes' reign, the second king had been Demaratus, but they had engaged in a feud and Demaratus had deserted to the Persian Empire. Leotychides succeeded Demaratus. Thus, Leonidas ruled, according to Spartan tradition, in partnership. According to custom, Leonidas assumed an important position in the priesthood of his state, but his most significant role was as commander of the Spartan army.

In matters of war, a Spartan king was expected to be the "first in the march and the last to retreat. This was the mandatory agenda of the Spartan male and a regimen which would last, in varying and lessening degrees of severity and discipline, until age The product of this conditioning was the finest warrior and army in ancient Greece and most probably the world. The Spartan heavy warrior or hoplite carried a long, thrusting spear; a short, stabbing sword; and a dagger.

His defensive accoutrements included a bronze, crested helmet; a large, round shield; and sometimes a breastplate and leggreaves "armor".

Traditionally, the Spartan hoplite wore a bright red cloak which was considered the most manly of colors. These warriors fought grouped together, shoulder-to-shoulder, in a tactical unit called a phalanx.

Presenting a forest of spears and shields, the phalanx may be likened, not too unreasonably, as the "tank" of the ancient world. From the front, the phalanx was well-nigh unstoppable, but it was vulnerable in the flanks and rear. In order to limit their vulnerability, the Spartans deployed more lightly-armed javelin troops. In this form of infantry warfare, the Spartans were unequalled. There is no evidence that they employed archers or slingers.

Nor did they employ cavalry in significant numbers, for the terrain of Greece is such as to limit the utility of mounted action. Naval matters were, for the most part, left to Sparta's allies.

Despite his impressive war machinery, Leonidas might have been recorded as no more than a name on the scroll of Sparta's kings had it not been for the epic events of B. King Xerxes and his Persian Empire invaded Greece. The roots of the Greco-Persian conflict had begun 20 years previously when several small ethnic-Greek states in Asia Minor rebelled against Persian rule.

Many Greek states including Athens supported their rebellious cousins, and through skill and good fortune the Greeks managed to defeat King Darius's Persian army at Marathon in B. Ten years later, Darius's son and Persia's king, Xerxes, determined to settle the Greek problem once and for all.