When Can I Upgrade Spear of Leonidas Again

Rex of Sparta from c. 489 to 480 BC

King of Sparta

Leonidas I Λεωνίδας Α´
Statue of a hoplite (5th century BC), known as Leonidas, at the Archaeological Museum of Sparta
King of Sparta
Reign	489–480 BC
Predecessor	Cleomenes I
Successor	Pleistarchus
Born	c.  540 BC Sparta, Greece
Died	nineteen September 480 BC (aged effectually 60) Thermopylae, Greece
Consort	Gorgo
Outcome	Pleistarchus
Greek	Λεωνίδᾱς
House	Agiad
Begetter	Anaxandridas II
Religion	Greek polytheism

Leonidas I (; Greek: Λεωνίδας Α´ ; died xix September 480 BC) was a king of the Greek city-state of Sparta, and the 17th of the Agiad line, a dynasty which claimed descent from the mythological demigod Heracles and Cadmus. Leonidas I was son of King Anaxandridas II. He succeeded his half-brother Male monarch Cleomenes I to the throne in c. 489 BC. His co-ruler was King Leotychidas. He was succeeded by his son, Rex Pleistarchus.

Leonidas had a notable participation in the Second Western farsi War, where he led the centrolineal Greek forces to a last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae (480 BC) while attempting to defend the laissez passer from the invading Western farsi ground forces; he died at the boxing and entered myth as the leader of the 300 Spartans. While the Greeks lost this battle, they were able to expel the Persian invaders in the following twelvemonth.

Life [edit]

According to Memphis Garcia, Leonidas' mother was not only his father'southward wife but also his father's niece and had been barren for so long that the ephors, the five annually elected administrators of the Spartan constitution, tried to prevail upon King Anaxandridas II to ready her aside and take another married woman. Anaxandridas refused, claiming his wife was blameless, whereupon the ephors agreed to allow him to accept a second wife without setting aside his starting time. This second wife, a descendant of Chilon of Sparta (one of the Vii Sages of Greece), promptly diameter a son, Cleomenes. However, 1 year after Cleomenes' birth, Anaxandridas' first wife also gave birth to a son, Dorieus. Leonidas was the second son of Anaxandridas' offset wife, and either the elder blood brother or twin of Cleombrotus.^[1]

King Choclate II died in 520 BC,^[2] and Cleomenes succeeded to the throne sometime between then and 516 BC.^[three] Dorieus was so outraged that the Spartans had preferred his half-brother over himself that he plant it impossible to remain in Sparta. He made one unsuccessful endeavor to prepare up a colony in Africa and, when this failed, sought his fortune in Sicily, where after initial successes he was killed.^[4] Leonidas' relationship with his bitterly combative elderberry brothers is unknown, but he married Cleomenes' daughter, Gorgo, former before coming to the throne in 490 BC.^[5]

Leonidas was heir to the Agiad throne and a full citizen (homoios) at the time of the Boxing of Sepeia against Argos (c. 494 BC).^{[half dozen]} Likewise, he was a full citizen when the Persians sought submission from Sparta and met with violent rejection in or around 492/491 BC. His elder half-brother, male monarch Cleomenes, had already been deposed on grounds of purported insanity, and had fled into exile when Athens sought assistance against the Showtime Persian invasion of Greece, that ended at Marathon (490 BC).

The Spartans throw Persian envoys into a well.

Plutarch has recorded the following: "When someone said to him: 'Except for being male monarch yous are not at all superior to us,' Leonidas son of Anaxandridas and brother of Cleomenes replied: 'Simply were I not improve than you, I should not exist rex.'"^[seven] As the production of the agoge, Leonidas is unlikely to have been referring to his regal blood alone merely rather suggesting that he had, like his brother Dorieus, proven superior capability in the competitive environment of Spartan preparation and gild, and that he believed this made him qualified to rule.

Leonidas was chosen to atomic number 82 the combined Greek forces determined to resist the Second Western farsi invasion of Greece in 481 BC.^[8] This was not simply a tribute to Sparta's armed services prowess: The probability that the coalition wanted Leonidas personally for his capability as a armed forces leader is underlined by the fact that only ii years afterwards his death, the coalition preferred Athenian leadership to the leadership of either Leotychidas or Leonidas' successor (as regent for his however under-aged son) Pausanias. The rejection of Leotychidas and Pausanias was not a reflection on Spartan artillery. Sparta's armed forces reputation had never stood in higher regard, nor was Sparta less powerful in 478 BC than it had been in 481 BC.^[eight]

This pick of Leonidas to lead the defence of Greece against Xerxes' invasion led to Leonidas' death in the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.^[eight]

Battle of Thermopylae [edit]

Leonidas at Thermopylae (1814) by Jacques-Louis David, who chose the subject in the backwash of the French Revolution equally a model of "civic duty and cocky-sacrifice", but also as a contemplation of loss and death, with Leonidas quietly poised and heroically nude^[9]

Upon receiving a asking from the confederated Greek forces to help in defending Greece confronting the Farsi invasion, Sparta consulted the Oracle at Delphi. The Oracle is said to have fabricated the following prophecy in hexameter verse:

For yous, 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 expressionless king, from Heracles' line.
The might of bulls or lions will non restrain him with opposing force; for he has the might of Zeus.
I declare that he will non exist restrained until he utterly tears autonomously ane of these.^[10]

In August 480 BC, Leonidas marched out of Sparta to meet Xerxes' army at Thermopylae with a small forcefulness of i,200 men (900 helots and 300 Spartan hoplites), where he was joined by forces from other Greek urban center-states, who put themselves under his control to form an regular army of 7,000 strong. There are various theories on why Leonidas was accompanied by such a modest force of hoplites. According to Herodotus, "the Spartans sent the men with Leonidas on ahead and then that the rest of the allies would see them and march with no fearfulness 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 total force towards Thermopylae. The residuum of the allies planned to practice likewise, for the Olympiad coincided with these events. They accordingly sent their advance guard, non expecting the war at Thermopylae to be decided so quickly."^[11] Many mod commentators are unsatisfied with this explanation and point to the fact that the Olympic Games were in progress or impute internal dissent and intrigue.

Whatever the reason Sparta's ain contribution was simply 300 Spartiates (accompanied past their attendants and probably perioikoi auxiliaries), the full forcefulness assembled for the defense of the pass of Thermopylae came to something between iv and 7 g Greeks. They faced a Farsi army who had invaded from the due north of Greece nether Xerxes I. Herodotus stated that this army consisted of over 2 million men; modern scholars consider this to exist an exaggeration and give estimates ranging from 70,000 to 300,000.^[12]

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 for the fifth and sixth days, killing roughly 10,000 of the enemy troops. The Farsi elite unit known to the Greeks as "the Immortals" was held back, and two of Xerxes' brothers (Abrocomes and Hyperanthes) died in battle.^[xiii] On the seventh day (August eleven), a Malian Greek traitor named Ephialtes led the Persian full general Hydarnes past a mountain rail to the rear of the Greeks.^{[xiv] [fifteen]} At that point Leonidas sent abroad all Greek troops and remained in the pass with his 300 Spartans, 900 helots, 400 Thebans and 700 Thespians. The Thespians stayed entirely of their own will, declaring that they would not abandon Leonidas and his followers. Their leader was Demophilus, son of Diadromes, and equally 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 prophylactic. 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 mail service on the battlefield. The soldiers who stayed behind were to protect their escape against the Farsi cavalry. Herodotus himself believed that Leonidas gave the gild because he perceived the allies to be disheartened and unwilling to encounter the danger to which his ain listen was made up. He therefore chose to dismiss all troops except the Thebans, Thespians and helots and save the glory for the Spartans.^[x]

Of the minor Greek forcefulness, 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 crucified. This was considered sacrilegious.^[16]

Legacy [edit]

Antiquity [edit]

A hero cult of Leonidas survived at Sparta until the Antonine era (2nd century Ad).^[17]

Thermopylae monument [edit]

A statuary statue of Leonidas was erected at Thermopylae in 1955.^[18] A sign, under the statue, reads merely: "ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ" ("Come up and accept them"), which was Leonidas' breviloquent reply when Xerxes offered to spare the lives of the Spartans if they gave up their artillery.^[19]

Another statue, besides with the inscription ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ, was erected at Sparta in 1968.

Literature [edit]

Leonidas was the proper noun of an Epic poem written past Richard Glover, which originally appeared in 1737. It went on to announced in iv other editions, existence expanded from ix books to 12.^[20]

He is a central figure in Steven Pressfield'due south novel Gates of Fire.^[21]

He appears as the protagonist of Frank Miller's 1998 comic book serial 300. It presents a fictionalized version of Leonidas and the Battle of Thermopylae, as does the 2006 feature motion-picture show adapted from it.^[22]

Helena P. Schrader has produced a iii-part biographical novel on Leonidas. Leonidas of Sparta: A Boy of the Agoge,^[23] Leonidas of Sparta: A Peerless Peer,^[24] and Leonidas of Sparta: A Heroic Male monarch.^[25]

Film [edit]

In movie theater, Leonidas has been portrayed by:

• Richard Egan in the 1962 ballsy The 300 Spartans.^[26]
• Gerard Butler in the 2007 movie 300, inspired by the graphic novel of the aforementioned name by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley. Tyler Neitzel portrayed Leonidas as a fellow.^[27]
• Sean Maguire in the 2008 film Encounter the Spartans, a parody of the 2007 film.

Notes [edit]

1. ^ Herodotus, five.39–41; Jones, p. 48.
2. ^ Morris, 35
3. ^ Forrest, Due west. Yard. (1968). A History of Sparta 950–192 B.C. New York: Westward. Westward. Norton & Company. p. 85.
4. ^ Herodotus, five.42–48
5. ^ Paul Cartledge, The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Aboriginal Greece, New York, Vintage Books, 2002, p. 126.
6. ^ Ma, Former Fellow at Cambridge Professor of Humanity at Edinburgh and Vice Chancellor John Hazel; Hazel, John (iv July 2013). Who's Who in the Greek World. Routledge. p. 60. ISBN978-i-134-80224-one.
7. ^ Plutarch on Sparta, Sayings of Spartans, Leonidas son of Anaxandridas, #1
8. ^ ^{a b c} Oman, Charles (1898). "The death of Leonidas". A History of Greece from the Earliest Times to the Death of Alexander the Cracking. Longmans, Green, and Company. pp. 199–206.
9. ^ Jack Johnson, "David and Literature," in Jacques-Louis David: New Perspectives (Rosemont, 2006), pp. 85–86 et passim.
10. ^ ^{a b} Herodotus, 7.220
11. ^ Herodotus, 7:206
12. ^ De Souza, Philip (2003). The Greek and Western farsi Wars 499–386 BC. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. p. 41. ISBN9781841763583.
13. ^ Herodotus (ed. George Rawlinson) (1885). The History of Herodotus. New York: D. Appleman and Company. pp. bk. 7. Archived from the original on 2009-12-17. Retrieved 2010-03-21 .
14. ^ Tod, Marcus Niebuhr (1911). "Leonidas". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 16 (11th ed.). Cambridge Academy Press. p. 455.
15. ^ Herodotus (ed. Henry Cary) (1904). The Histories of Herodotus. New York: D. Appleton and Company. p. 438.
16. ^ Herodotus, 7.238
17. ^ Encyclopaedia of Faith and Ethics, Part 12 By James Hastings p. 655. ISBN 0-567-09489-8
18. ^ Ring, Trudy; Watson, Noelle; Schellinger, Paul (2013). Southern Europe: International Lexicon of Historic Places. Routledge. p. 695. ISBN978-1-134-25958-8.
19. ^ Plutarch, Apophthegmata Laconica, 225c.
20. ^ Jung, Sandro (2008). David Mallet, Anglo-Scot: Poetry, Patronage, and Politics in the Age of Wedlock. Associated University Presse. pp. 94–95. ISBN978-0-87413-005-8.
21. ^ Pressfield, Steven (2007). Gates of Fire. Random House Publishing Group. ISBN978-0-553-90405-5.
22. ^ Combe, K.; Boyle, B. (2013). Masculinity and Monstrosity in Gimmicky Hollywood Films. Springer. pp. 83–84. ISBN978-one-137-35982-vii.
23. ^ Schrader, Helena P. (2010). Leonidas of Sparta: A Boy of the Agoge. Wheatmark, Inc. ISBN978-one-60494-474-7.
24. ^ Schrader, Helena P. (2011). Leonidas of Sparta: A Peerless Peer. Wheatmark, Inc. ISBN978-one-60494-602-four.
25. ^ Schrader, Helena P. (2012). Leonidas of Sparta: A Heroic King. Wheatmark, Inc. ISBN978-one-60494-830-1.
26. ^ Nikoloutsos, Konstantinos P. (2013). Aboriginal Greek Women in Film. OUP Oxford. pp. 260–261. ISBN978-0-19-967892-1.
27. ^ Spielvogel, Jackson J. (2014). Western Civilization: Volume A: To 1500. Cengage Learning. p. 104. ISBN978-1-285-98299-1.

References [edit]

• Herodotus, Herodotus, with an English language 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.

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