Leonidas
CHARACTER» Leonidas I
Leonidas was a Spartan king of the 5th century BC. He is famous for his role in defense of Greece during the Persian Wars.


King Leonidas is today best remembered for his his role during the Battle of Thermopylae. Leonidas along with 300 Spartan citizen-warriors and an unknown number of auxiliaries died in the battle of 480 BC wherein they stalled the Persian advance into the Peloponnese. This would prove to be a crucial incident in the Persian Wars as the the Spartan defeat would inspire Pan-Hellenic ideals among the Greeks, leading to their victory over the Achaemenid Empire which subsequently set the stage for Sparta to become a dominant military power in the Mediterranean .