His Rise & Royal Line
This event involving his older half-brother Dorieus leaving Sparta to found colonies abroad, and King Cleomenes I dying without a male heir, unexpectedly cleared the path for Leonidas to ascend to the throne.
Dorieus leaving to found colonies and Cleomenes dying without a male heir?
The approximate age of King Leonidas when he led his men and made his heroic last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BCE.
60 years old
The name of the local Greek traitor who infamously revealed a secret mountain path to Xerxes, allowing the Persian forces to outflank Leonidas's rear-guard.
Ephialtes
The total number of brave Greek allies from Thespiae who stubbornly refused to retreat and chose to die alongside the 300 Spartans.
700 Thespians
The exact English translation of Leonidas's defiant Greek response, "Molon Labe," spoken when the Persian messenger demanded the Greeks surrender their weapons.
Come and take them
The son of King Leonidas and Queen Gorgo who directly succeeded him to the Agiad royal line of Sparta following his death at Thermopylae.
Pleistarchus
This sacred, multi-day Spartan religious festival in honor of Apollo legally forbade the full Spartan army from marching to war during the Persian invasion.
Carneia
The name "Thermopylae" translates literally to this phrase in English, referencing the natural sulfur springs found in the coastal pass.
Hot Gates
Along with the Spartans and Thespians, a force of 400 soldiers from this specific city-state stayed on the final day, though history debates if they were held as hostages.
Thebans
The iconic opening line of the commemorative epitaph inscribed at the battlefield by the poet Simonides, explicitly addressing the homeland of the fallen.
Tell them in Lacedaemon, passerby: that here, obedient to their laws, we lie
This iconic, sharp-witted Spartan Queen was both the niece of Leonidas and his fiercely supportive wife.
Queen Gorgo
Leonidas selected his 300 bodyguards specifically because every single man chosen possessed this specific familial status to ensure their family line continued.
living sons (or male heirs)
To bottle up the massive Persian army, Leonidas and his allies heavily fortified and repaired an ancient wall originally built by these local rivals.
Phocian Wall
Before the retreat on the third day, the total Greek force under Leonidas's command on day one actually numbered around this many thousand men.
7,000 men
The renowned neoclassical French artist who painted the monumental 1814 masterpiece Leonidas at Thermopylae, which is now preserved in the Louvre Museum.
Jacques-Louis David
Leonidas belonged to this ancient royal family line, one of the two co-ruling dynasties of Sparta alongside the Eurypontids.
Agiad dynasty
This famous oracle gave Sparta a dark prophecy stating that either their city would be destroyed by barbarians or they would mourn the death of an Agiad king.
Oracle of Delphi
This elite unit of 10,000 royal Persian shock troops was repeatedly thrown against Leonidas's phalanx, only to be heavily repelled on the first two days.
Immortals
This famous seer and prophet refused to leave the battlefield on the final day despite Leonidas ordering him to carry messages back home.
Megistias
The deep indignity that the Persian king Xerxes inflicted upon the corpse of King Leonidas after the battlefield was secured, violating traditional rules of warfare.
Cutting off his head and impaling it on a stake
Leonidas's father, this king, famously had two wives simultaneously, leading to a complicated line of succession among his sons.
Anaxandridas II
Leonidas only took a small advance guard because the Spartans were also waiting for the conclusion of this pan-Hellenic athletic event before sending full forces.
Olympic Games
This secret mountain trail, revealed by the traitor, allowed the Persians to bypass the main Greek defensive line at the pass.
Anopaea path
This general commanded the 700 fiercely loyal Thespian forces who volunteered to sacrifice their lives alongside Leonidas.
Demophilus
The total number of years that passed after the Battle of Thermopylae before King Leonidas's remains were finally exhumed and returned to Sparta for a formal burial and hero-shrine.
40 years later