Leonidas: King of Sparta, Hero of Thermopylae

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Late summer, 480 BC and a massive Persian army, more than 100,000 strong, approaches the gates of the Mopalai, an arrow pass with mountains to its south and a Gulf of water to its north. Get through this pass and the road to great cities like Athens lies open for the Persian King's Xerxes and his mighty host.

But in their way stands an army, tiny in comparison, but determined to block the pass. Armed it by a figure who would become steeped in legend, Leonidas, King of Sparta, hero of the Mopalai. Thanks to the ancient Greek historian Herodstus, Frank Miller's 300 comic series, and two Hollywood films, today, most of us carry a ready-made image of Leonidas as a fearless warrior

king, hurling himself against endless ranks of Persian soldiers. But who was the real Leonidas?

“Before all of the glory, all of the legend, how much actually survives about him?”

In today's episode, we peel back these layers of legend to explore the complicated world which shaped him, and the twisted and tragic politics in his family, Sparta's royal achyied dynasty. We'll look at the reign of his half-proper Cleomanese, the scandals, the illegitimadness, and

the political rupture that ultimately opened the way for Leonidas to war.

And then, of course, we march to the Mopalai. Leonidas is finest hour during the climax of the Greco-Persian wars. Welcome to the ancients. I'm Tristan Hughes your host, and this is the story of Leonidas. Our guest is Dr. Andrew Balis, associate professor in Greek history at the University of

Birmingham, and the author of Sparta, the rise and form of an ancient superpower. Andrew, what a pleasure it is to have you back on the podcast. It has been too long. Thank you. Brilliant to be here again.

To talk about, he is the most famous, the legendary Sparton King, Leonidas, and he has become something of an icon today purely because of the best of the Mopalai. Absolutely. If you think of Sparta, you think of the Mopalai. You think of Leonidas.

They all go together as one package. But as we're going to be covering his whole story today, there is so much more to his tale than just the Mopalai. Yes. And no.

“As in, because is this a figure shrouded in quite a bit of mystery?”

I would say, for sure, in terms of lack of sources, most of the sources we have are talking entirely about the Bumble of the Mopalai. So it's almost like Leonidas appears out of nowhere, but you sort of have to dig around and find the backstory in the early of stories about the Sparton. Is it understanding more about Sparta as a state and how Sparta actually is a people to

kind of learn more about what Leonidas is earlier years, which it looked like? Absolutely. And picking through the narratives about his family story, because he's one of four brothers. So there's a lot to unpick there. And can you tell us what our main source is for learning about Leonidas?

And the world in which he lived, so the late sixth and early fifth centuries BC. Yeah. So our number one source and our earliest surviving source is a roditas.

“And so that's why it's all about the Mopalai, because her roditas doesn't even mention”

Leonidas until he actually gets to the Mopalai. So he really does appear out of nowhere. We've got later sources like Diadorus, but here on the introduces Leonidas at the Mopalai as well. Sangs attributed to him by Plutarch, but most of those are actually relating to the Mopalai

as well. So we're quite limited in source material. And how much can we trust, as if we focus on her roditas first and foremost, how much can we trust his version of Leonidas that he puts forward? And I guess his overall opinion towards Sparton Kings?

That's a tricky one.

It's always a tricky one.

How much can we trust anything with Sparta? So her roditas traveled to Sparta. He spoke to Spartons. It has been suggested by many experts

So he would be getting a official version of Leonidas, but maybe somewhat partial version of Leonidas. And he's writing 50 years after the events.

“So there's a lot of really balancing, I think, of what really happened coming through.”

So he's getting the official Sparton version of what the Mopalai was rather than what we might think the Mopalai actually was. He's already become a cult hero by that time in Sparta, which I'm sure would explore his time goes on. Absolutely. I think cult heroes perfect.

And I think all the 300 who fought and died with Leonidas were cult heroes in Sparta. So her roditas says he traveled to Sparta and he said, I learned all their names. And so he bothered to find the mountain, sort of, commit them to memory, even though he didn't write them all down. And he doesn't say, I read the names off the list that was set up afterwards.

So he probably didn't actually see the later memorial to the men who fought and died at the Mopalai as well. You're a proper keen being if you learn all 300 or so of those names of the figures. I think so. Her roditas liked to show how clever he was. He liked to show his maths. He often got that wrong, but he was trying and I think he really

did commit a lot of facts to memory. OK, good effort. Good effort, roditas. And can we also say that, do we have any archeological evidence for Leonidas at the same time? My mind will immediately go if we're talking about an ancient ruler to something like

“coinage or inscriptions, but do we have anything of that sort for him?”

No. So we have no classical period Sparta and coinage at all. So it's only in the Hellenistic period that we actually get proper Spartan coinage. No inscriptions barely on a desk as name. There's just those literary accounts, that's it. And is that classic Spartan statues in there or depiction of a Spartan and people sometimes

say that's Leonidas, but is that true? That's not Leonidas. When the excavators dug him up, they nicknamed him Leonidas because he was a big heroic looking man and it kind of made sense, but no.

So there's nothing like I might always think of a miltiredies.

Isn't he the best marathon and there's the Hellmitting it as miltiredies on it? Yeah, the miltiredies helmet from Marathon, yeah, I'd love to take a much student to a limp here and show him this is the miltiredies helmet, maybe. As the right time period, it's got the right name on it. Now there's nothing like that for the feeling Leonidas at all.

The closest you get is the commemorative inscription that was set up in modern times at the monopoly, which is said to be a representation of the real monument that was set up afterwards. I'm getting a clear feeling here, maybe our classical evidence for Leonidas is pretty slice, but let's explore his story as much as we can by taking into account what we know about the Spartan world and the world of Spartan elites and kings at the time that he would

have been living. So first and foremost, let's start at the beginning. Do we know much about when he's born and who his parents were?

We actually know a surprisingly larger mount, so we finally have something to play with

there. So Herodotus gives us a lot of details, he clearly talked to the right people and he tells us about the pretty odd coincidences going on with the two Spartan royal houses at the time and you have Leonidas's father, Annex Andridass, and his co-king, Arrestone, both have been trouble having children and they reached different ways of solving their problem.

So when it came to Annex Andridass, he was failing to have a child and the Spartan officials the e-forves visited him and they basically told him he needed to sort it out and make sure that he didn't allow the royal line to die out and they said, "Did your current wife take a new one, get her pregnant and everything will be good?" Annex Andridass said, "No," he said, "my wife's blameless, you're giving me bad advice."

And they threatened him and said, "Well, we could find some way of solving this if you don't do what we're telling you to do, but here's a compromise.

“Take another wife as well and have children by her and that's what he did.”

And so, by the new wife, he had his first son Cliamonys, but almost as soon as she fell pregnant, the original wife fell pregnant as well, and she gave birth to a son not long after named Dorius, and then sometime afterwards two sons Leonidas and Cliambrotas, who were so close together that there was a story that they might have been twins. Right.

And those are all from the first wife from Annex Andridass, apart from Cliamonys. Yeah, Cliamonys is with the second wife and then the other three are with the original wife. Okay, so Cliamonys is the only half-brother, that's right, yeah. And also, you mentioned their Spartan kings at that time.

Can you explain to us this unique concept?

And I always hesitate saying the words unique in these cases, but I think it is with

the story of Spartan kings. How this Spartan royalty ruled, because there is not just one royal line. Yeah, that Spartan is not a monarchy, it's a diearchy. Diearchy. Not a word.

It is a wonderful word, and I often say to people, "All right, name another diearchy."

where you have two genuinely equal royal houses.

“So Herodotas tells us that the agiad royal house, which was the Onidas as one, was”

the more senior, but a hundred years later the Uruponted Royal House actually seemed more senior, so it was probably for some personality as much as anything else. So two kings supposedly equal both Command armies, both sit on the Council of Elders, and they could nominally be in charge at various points in time. And do they both feel the same functions?

It's not like one king is more senior than the other than when they're ruling at the same time. No, so they both, priests of Zeus, they both command armies, they both sit on the Council, so they have very equal roles in that way. Herodotas tells us one story where Cleomanese, the Onidas's half-brother, led out an army

and his co-command of was Demerantes, the Uruponted King, and along the way, Demerantes decided he didn't want to be involved in that went home. And when he left, all the allies went, "Oh, well, the Spartans aren't on equal footing on this, so we better bail out as well." So the whole campaign led to nothing.

And then afterwards, the Spartans, according to Roderotas, set up a new rule where only one king would command an army to avoid that kind of thing happening again.

So there's always a king in spite of that kind of idea is his.

Yeah, so there'll be one at home to oversee what's happening there and one in commanding the army and then no chance of them interfering with each other. And in regards to like marriage and wives of these kings, did they ever intermarried, did they ever mix the two lines? Not that we know of, no.

So it's only in the Hellenistic period that there's sort of some sort of change with that. No, there's no sense in, I'm trying to think of a concrete example and I can't. So they intermarried within their own family, so Annexandredas's first wife was his niece. But I'm struggling to think of any moment where the two royal houses mingle. But that's even more interesting.

So let's focus that. So close can marriage and insist are parts of Spartan rule like that. Yep. So there's several examples of Uncle's marrying pieces in the age of world that was as abnormal as it is today, but that is something that Spartan seemed to have done enough for people

to notice and it's probably all about the fact that Spartan women in here at land. So you can keep the wealth in the family by making sure that they don't marry out into another family. With these Spartan kings, are they also expected primarily to be charismatic and capable warlords, especially when they're leading the army out?

“Are they expected to be fighting at the front with them?”

They do fight very much at the front and they're guarded by the elite unit of the Spartan army, the 300 hippies, which literally means knights, but they don't fight on horseback. And so the best of the best of it, the king, Olympic champions, have a special right to fight near the king as well, so the king should be at the front, and quite a few Spartan kings do die in combat.

And are they expected to be athletic? Do they compete in the Olympic games as well? We do have examples of Spartan kings competing in the Olympic games, Teamar artists, the onadesses.

No, he's never quite the onadesses co-king adjacent to the onadass.

He won at the horse-charit race at the Olympics, but we don't have any examples of boxing or running or anything like that for the kings, but they do do sport. So expected to have that kind of very, like his virulent character to them, that charismatic character when they're as part of their leadership. So let's talk about the next stage in the onadass's story, which is the death of his father

and examined us. So what happens when an examined us dies? Well, as far as I see it, what happens when an examined us dies, the natural things happens. His eldest son, Cleomanese, becomes king. But that seems to have been a surprise to his second son, Dorius, who thought that he

should be king. And her order to say he thought he should be king because he was manifestly the best of his generation. And the obvious assumption from that is, is that he must have gone through the Spartan upbringing that it must be in operation by now, because how else would he be able to

prove that he was the best of his generation if it wasn't something that the people have been assessing and monitoring? And what was this sparse in upbringing? This feels a good time to talk about that as well, because I guess we can also ask whether Leonidas would have done similar.

Yeah. So the Spartan upbringing is a mandatory step to false part and citizenship for ordinary Spartans.

“So you have to start at age seven, go through to 20 or 30 depending on how you want to assess”

the final stage of, sort of, processing a citizen through the indisible citizenship. It's quite brutal. There's a lot of sport. The official who oversees it has the title, "Pyder Nommos," which means boyhooder.

describes them as sort of squadrons.

The Pyder Nommos is assisted by young men known as the whip bearers, and there is a lot of evidence for brutal corporal punishment for indiscretions by boys going through the upbringing. And every single Spartan citizen has to go through this with a couple of exceptions. And that is the direct is to the two royal houses. So Plutarch tells us, probably incorrectly, that the fourth century you're appointed king

against the AS was the only Spartan king to have gone through the upbringing. He probably hadn't remembered that Leonidas must have done before him. So it makes it exceptional for these kings who have gone through the upbringing because they're kind of one of the boys, but they're not because they then become one of these charismatic kings.

So the thought process that a lot more than scholars have is that they exempted the air to the throne from the upbringing because you couldn't really risk them failing. So they might look a bit rubbish if they'd done badly. So here we go as to Leonidas's family then it seems that Clionidas would not have gone through this, but both Dorayas and Leonidas would have gone through this fully Spartan

training. Yeah, and the other brother, Clion Brothers as well. So there would have been this obvious distinction between those three full brothers and their half brothers. So won't necessarily just be in, yeah, we kind of think we're better than him because

where from the original legitimate wife there may well have been a sense that what we've gone through the state upbringing, so we're manifestly better men than him, he hasn't done it. And can you also explain what happens if, let's say Leonidas completes that training as he almost certainly did, how does that distinguish him from the rest of Spartan society

and not just full blooded Spartans?

“Well, I think when it comes to full blooded Spartans, it distinguishes him not at all.”

It actually makes him part of what you could think of as the, as the in group of Spartan citizens, they call themselves the memorial, which means the equals, they dying together in communal mess groups every night. They spend their time exercising, hunting, being gentleman of leisure. So he would have been one of, one of them, whereas Clion Brothers wouldn't have been.

He would have been separate from that. The kings have their own common mess where they die and with their chosen companions and they get a double portion so they can entertain guests. So, so Leonidas would have been one of the guys. And then he would have been like all Spartans who doesn't very distinct from the sub-citizen

groups in Spartan, that the period I call, and then the hell lots who did the work for them. And so who the period I call? Their free men who live in communities around the Spartans, they share the label "lacodemonians" with the Spartans because Spartans are really Spartans, the primary sources all call them the "lacodemonians" and so they do the work that the Spartans are supposed to be not doing

because they have gentlemen of leisure who are supposedly aren't allowed to work. So they do the trading, they do the manufacturing, that kind of thing. And then beneath them you have the slave population of hell lots who work the land for the Spartans are allowing them all, including Leonidas, to be gentlemen of leisure.

“And perioico, is that literally means those living around?”

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, that's literally it. So do you think it's fair to say that Leonidas, when he's growing up, when he's going through this education, that even he himself would not have expected to one day become king?

I think we could probably ask many princes now how they feel about what their chances are

of becoming king, but I think as the third brother he would have thought very little chance

of becoming a king. And so what do we know then by the time that Cleomanese does succeed his father is king? Do we have any idea roughly how old Doris and Leonidas would have been at that time as well? Doris is basically practically the same age as Cleomanese, when not sure what the gap is between Leonidas and Cleomanese, but the assumption is he's kind of pushing 60 by the

battle of the mobiles, so when their father dies, he should be near enough to an adult. No, no, no, no, it's about because he dies in about 524 something like that. Yeah, definitely that. And that's when Cleomanese comes to the fore. And what is Cleomanese's reign?

What is it defined by? How does he change I guess improved his father?

“I think what he does is continue his father's policies, which was ousting tyrants from other”

parts of the Greek world and trying to set up puppet regimes that will be loyal to Sparta and secure Sparta's security from outside threat. So he does that, but in his own way, and occasionally pushes things too far. And where are these threats at this time?

How powerful does Sparta is in the dominant force in the Peloponnese?

Or is it still trying to kind of expand its authority there? I think it's still trying to expand its authority. It is becoming the dominant force. So by the time Herodotus introduces us to the Spartans, which is 540 or thereabouts, he said

dominant force augurs is still strong and still powerful.

So a lot of Cleomanese activities are directed against augurs.

“Is this around the time we get the famous bastal of the champions as well?”

Yeah, so it's just the Battle of the Champions is around 570 by or thereabouts. So that's the moment that Sparta really starts to dominate augurs. But augurs is still powerful, so there needs to be a few more confrontations for augurs to finally accept that the Spartans are really in charge. Well, are there any big notable campaigns by Cleomanese in the Peloponnese?

Or perhaps even beyond that that occurs during his reign that we should mention? I think you can't not talk about his involvement with Athens. OK, so the Athenians have their official story, which was harmonious and Aristogitant, the Tyrannicides, got rid of the tyrants because they killed Hiparkas. They're so prostitutes.

Yeah, except he was the brother, the younger brother of Hippia, so he was the actual tired of Athens.

“So the Athenian official story is kind of hiding the fact that really it was the Spartans who”

ousted Hippia, because they got messages from the Oracle at Delphi to liberate Athens from the tyranny, so they did. And so they had several failed attempts, militarily, to oust Hippia's and then Cleomanese led the campaign himself and actually ended up besieging the Paisistered family on the Athenian Acropolis and managed to force them out.

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Vikings as they arrive on Iceland's lonely shores. For the best historical stories to get lost in, check out Dan Snow's History at. Can we presume is it likely then that Leonidas would have been one of the Sparsan hotlights, one of the Sparsan warriors serving in that army? It's entirely plausible that Leonidas will have been involved in some of his brother's campaigns,

although you might wonder whether what role he would have is he going to be an officer would the king want his younger half brother to be in any sort of official role or would he consider that to be a problem? Popular novels covering this often, sort of, certainly on it as into a senior officer and someone who's learning to sort of find his own way while his brother is king, but there's nothing in this process. That's the really frustrating thing.

The probably a few hypothetical questions that I'm going to ask, I mean, one of them, another theoretical one, is if Leonidas did go through that Sparsan training system, which seems almost certain that he did, I can't ever wonder whether that would have really increased his popularity with the Sparsans that he was growing up alongside, and almost becoming the equivalent of his companions, and whether is there any potential there that the likes of Cleomanese would have

looked upon his younger brothers, his half brothers, and seen them as potential threats because they might have had a lot of popularity with Sparsans of similar age? I would think so, yes, and the direct analogy is, I guess I may as the fourth century, you're appointed King who went through the upbringing, who seems to have been particularly respected by his men because he had gone through that system with them. So some of the other kings, or sort of seemed to be, well,

well, who do they think they are? What's their right to command us? They don't know what they're doing, whereas, I guess I may as obviously knew what he was doing, because he'd gone through the system, and had been recognized as excellent. So the same thing might have happened with the honoured ass, the other guys might have thought, yeah, he's one of us. So that would be potentially

a threat to a King, particularly a King who had a reputation for not always following the rules,

which is what Cleomanese had. So how does he not follow the rules? Over time, he develops a

“reputation for being, I think, not actually accepting bribes, but vulnerable to bribery,”

and outright acts of impiety. Religious atrocities would be a not unkind way of putting us.

I must have also asked about the middle brother, about Dorias. Do we know what happens to him?

Because he sounds like he wasn't that happy. Yeah, Dorias is very angry when Cleomanese becomes King, and as Roder just puts that he refused to be ruled by his brother. So he asked to be able to set up a colony somewhere else. So he asked the Spartan authorities and said, can I have some men to found the colony? And despite his reputation for being excellent, he did not ask the Oracle at Delphi where he should set up his colony. He just decided to do it, and he ended up

going to North Africa, and his colony failed. They were driven out by the Carthaginians and the locals, came back to Sparta, tried to start again, asked the Oracle at Delphi whether he would be successful if he set up a colony in southern Italy and did, and then got involved in the local war and

ended up getting himself killed. This is the first of those kind of Greek adventurers dare I say

to Southern Italy that would become so popular over the next few centuries or so. Do you think, well, it's another kind of theoretical question. Isn't it hypothetical? Whether Leonidas could have been tempted with doing something similar? There's nothing in the sources that suggests he was, maybe he was smart enough to realise that if he looked around in Sparta, he might get somewhere with

“this. I'm not sure, but I think my reading of his erodotus is that he paints Dorias as someone who”

really ought to have just stuck around because he kind of contradicts himself about Cleomanese. He said he didn't reign for very long, which is not true. He's got his maths wrong there, but I think he might be trying to make that point to say look if Dorias had just waited around way until Cleomanese died. He could have been the king, and then he could have been the one who was leading the Spartans at Thermopoli. Do Spartan kings regularly look outside the Pelopoli? So look,

look to the sea and the waters and places beyond the seas nearby. Is that quite unusual?

Spartan foreign policy is always cast by our primary sources as cautious, so I think actually trying

to go too far away as a bit dangerous. And when Arrestagoras, the tired of Miletus, asks the Spartans to intervene to help them rebel against the Persians. He seems quite interested until he finds out how far away it is. When Arrestagoras has this amazing bronze map, which is like super new technology, he points out all the parts of the Persian kingdom and says, "All look at all, look how big it is, and how wonderful it is, and how much gold and silver they have." You'll eat

them easily, and then Cleomanese says, "Okay, how far is it from here to the Persian Heartland?" And he's told three months, and his response is, "Get out of the spot, but just go." Really? Get out. Yeah, wow. Okay, well, how does it all end for Cleomanese? Hinted it earlier. It doesn't end well,

“does it? I think that's an understatement, and spectacularly badly for Cleomanese. So there's a series”

of scandals. He has a falling out with his co-king, Demeratus, it involves him then trying to get Demeratus deposed to make that happen. He bribes the priests at Delphi to get the priestess at Delphi to declare Demeratus illegitimates. Demeratus is deposed and ends up running away to Persia. Afterwards, it turns out the story gets out that he's bribed the Oracle at Delphi. Not the done thing. There's a campaign against the archives where he is victorious, but he

doesn't catch the city of Argos, and on his way home, he flogs the priest at the Argivirion. Well, he has his hellots flog the priest at the Argivirion. He burns a sacred grove in which some runaway Argives have hidden, so religious atrocities at Plenty. The Argivirion is a secret place to the Goddess Hero. Yeah, when he tries to make a sacrifice there, the priest says you can't because you're not Argivirion, and he just has his hellots drag him away and flog him and does

the sacrifice. Anyway, getting the impression of a man who doesn't necessarily follow the rule,

“he doesn't care anymore sounds like. Yeah, not really. I think, or that's the message we're”

getting about him, he ends up going into somewhat voluntary exile, and then one is in exile. He starts stirring up trouble and tries to get various sub-spartant allies to swear allegiance to him, at which point the authorities panic and bring him back, and he ends up under house arrest under the care of his relatives, and then he's found one day covered in bloods, knife, hacked himself to pieces allegedly, himself. Yeah, so the story, as he started coming,

his skin on his legs and just he drips and then just got higher and higher and higher and then when he got to his belly, he just bled to death. And the source of information was the hellot who was left guarding him, who he bullied into giving him the knife. He said, "Give me the knife, the hellot said no," and he said, "Well, think what I'm going to do to you if I ever get out of here, so the hellot gave in the knife." That's the official story. That's not a nice end for Clio Manise.

Who succeeds him? Well, his half-brother, the honoured ass married to his daughter,

some wooden scholars have suggested what may be, maybe there was something not quite legit about this story about how Clio Manise died. Simply on his ass could have orchestrated and potentially also Gorggo too, so his own daughter? Potentially. Wow. And so,

“Clio Manise has no male son's disease. That's why it goes to his half-brother Leónadass,”

and Doris is out the picture by now. Yeah, Doris is dead by now. Doris, Clio Manise, Clio Manise, Clio Manise is currently younger than Leónadass, or if they were twins, he's clearly Leónadass is currently the older twin. So Leónadass is now King, and he's married Gorggo, so Clio Manise is daughter. Do we know much behind the marriage there? No, and so there's going to be an obvious age gap

between the two. So either Leónadass had had a previous wife who died, or they waited long enough for him to marry his niece so that they would keep that wealth in the family. And so,

do we know much then about, I first off Leónadass is inheriting quite an unusual position,

dare I say the fact that one of the previous kings has fled to Persia, and the other one has may well have been killed by Leónadass's command. So it is quite an interesting situation

“that he's thrown himself into compared to, let's say, that of his father, and exaggerated us?”

Yeah, I'd love to know more. That's the problem we have with a Herodotus's narrative, as he doesn't say when he describes the death of Clio Manise. Oh, and he was succeeded by Leónadass. He kind of just moves on. So it's only when you get to the narrative about the monopoly that you actually get the stories of Leónadass then. So there is a void in our sources. So we don't really know exactly what's going on in this period of time. But maybe because

of the massive change that you've described, there's been two quite strong kings in both royal

houses, and they've both been replaced by people who would never have expected to be king. So maybe

there is just a bit of a power of that. So who is the other person who's become king at this time? So Deemeratus was replaced by his cousin Leónadass who had no great distinguishing features whatsoever. So he probably went through the upbringing as well, but not in a demonstrably excellent kind of way. There's a wonderful story when Deemeratus had not yet gone into exile. He'd been elected to hold an official post and at the Spartan religious festival,

The Jim Napidei, they had to hide his decided to sort of poke him a bit and send a servant and said, "How does it feel to hold an elected office after you've served as king like I am now?"

“And Deemeratus responds, "I think quite a good one," he says, "Well, you wouldn't know because”

you would never distinguish enough to hold an elected role." But that's the event that prompts

him to go into exile. So he loses his temper and then runs off to the Persians. Runs off to the Persians. But that's also interesting to highlight that link between Sparta and Persia at that time. It sounds like, at least, with the royal family, with the kings. The Persians and the Spartans, they did have contact. They did. And so Cleomanese policy seems to have been prepare Sparta to resist the Persians. The fact that he was often being stymied by Deemeratus

and then Deemeratus ending up in Persia suggests that maybe Deemeratus had other ideas. And also, so what date is it that Cleomanese dies and Leona does officially becomes the next king? It's some time around the Battle of Marathon. It's murky exactly when it happened. So we don't think that Leona does is leading the Spartan force. That goes to Marathon after the battle is for to look at the corpses of the Persians. It would be nice to think that he was.

But we don't know. So they sent two thousand men in a hurry, so it's entirely possible that they were under a more junior officer, just with the orders of get their fast and maybe a larger Spartan army was meant to come later. There we go. So it's a decade after that that we get to the Battle of Thermopoli and Leona does is claim to fame. Is it where? Do we know anything? Can we presume anything about Leona does

is ruled in that decade? Before we get zirxes, king of kings and the great second Persian invasion of Greece. I'd love to say yes, but no. And we even potentially have indications that it's not that significant. As in the initial Greek allied forces that are sent north to try and stop zirxes are not under his command. They attempt to hold off. Well, they think they can hold off zirxes at the Valley of Tempe in Thessole and send 10,000 men of large fleet.

And there's a random Spartan who's not a member of the Royal House in charge of that. So at 10,000, 10,000 Greek allies. So not all full Spartans, it's a combination of Greece. Yeah, combination of Greeks. Yeah, they'll probably be marines off the warships, because there was nowhere where they could actually try and fight against the Persians. It's see there. Because of the strategy, it was trying to block them up in narrow spaces,

Let's see where it would have been narrow there. So it seems they probably just beached their ships

and then decant and ended up getting off the ships and then being ready to fight on land. So there's a large force and there's no sign of Leonidas in charge of it. Well, Andrew, talk us then through how we get to Leonidas camping with his men at the hot gates at the Mopoli. And feel free, please do to include some of the quotes that are attributed to him at this time as well. Right. Okay. So those quotes that attributed to Leonidas are in the late sources.

And the fact that Herodotus, who knows a very good one line of winning, here's one, doesn't use any of those suggest to me that they are part of the later legend about Leonidas. But we can we can come to that later. Yes, yes. So I mentioned Tempy, it's a complete failure. They get there and they're warned by Alexander the King of Macedon that they have no chance of holding

“up. So that's how you don't get a great. Just to come up. Yeah, definitely not Alexander the Great.”

So that one drives my students in saying, yeah, Alexander the first, not Alexander the third.

And they told that basically they'll be two easily surrounded. So they withdraw. And then they go back sit down south and come up with a plan B and the plan B is thermopoli. Because it's on the major route for sort of wield vehicles from northern to southern Greece. And at its narrowest it's sort of 15 meters wide. So it makes sense. And it's actually adjacent to some straight narrow streets where the fleet would be able to block

up the Persians as well. So it makes sense. So the story that Herodotus tells us is this co-inscience with the Olympics games when there is a truce for all the Greeks to compete in the Olympics. It also coincides with the month of the Karnaya when all of the Dorian Greeks maintain a strict truce. So that explains why only 300 Spartans and a comparatively small number of allies

“are sent to Thermopoli. And the Dorian Greeks are these the group that includes Spartan”

other Peloponnesian cities. Yeah, most of the other Peloponnesians and then islands like Ejina and roads and costs and places like that. So it's one of the major ethnic groups of the Greeks. And that is why you see such a small number of soldiers then combining together after that is that a reason. That's a logical explanation. It's what Herodotus tells us. But the numbers kind of don't work in terms of the calendar is like by the time you actually get to the battle

of Thermopoli the Karnaya should be over by now. So there's maybe this is part of the official Spartan version of what actually happened later on after to sort of cover up what was maybe a complete sort of mess up in that way. So are the 300 Spartans who were sent with the onadass are they a suicide squad? Are they an advanced guard? Deadly onadass just not actually managed to hold the past long enough for reinforcements to arrive. These are these are questions that we

“don't know the answer to but we can speculate. Was it a logistics cock-up that there was”

more men to go to the past to defend there? That has been argued. And you could see that. So as a Thermopoli can be cast as this great moral victory, even though they lost or it could just be cast as a complete failure. They held up zirxes for a couple of days and it was all over. Is it decided though that the onadass he is going to be the commander in chief of that army force. There's no kind of Athenian general who's right there and who's also a vink or rank or something like that.

No. So the Athenians are actually in the fleet at Artemisium which is taking place at the same time as Thermopoli but there's no sense that any of the allies are equal. Spartans are in command of the allied Greek forces against the Persians. That was agreed. The Peloponnesians made it clear. They wouldn't accept anyone else and the Athenians just kind of had to swallow it. They agreed to it. And also there's a Spartan naval commander as well. I mean you think the mysticies but

is your your abidies? Yeah your abidies is is in charge of the fleet and her rodotus almost implies that he is senior to Leonidass as well which is which is interesting. The shaltly say. And when Leonidass does leave Spartus to go to the hot gates, Thermopoli at that time,

to walk us through first of all with the famous saying he supposedly gives to Gorgor and his family.

Oh yes. So as it's not in her rodotus but it is in the dire door as version of things is that Leonidass this very is wonderful saying. So one of them is the e-phores tell him he's not taking enough men and he says for my purpose I'm taking enough and they say seriously do you understand what you're doing and he says yes to die there's enough. So he makes it clear that there's it's a suicide mission. That's a suicide mission. This story is that he told Gorgor when she asked

what should I do? His response to her was Mary well and have more children. So he would know that he was going off to die. Her rodotus makes it clear that Leonidass and all of them in with him had living sons. So that my imply that they knew it was a great risk that they might die,

come back with your shield or on it? Well, she doesn't say that. It's not one of her attributed

sayings but that that he's in the sayings of Spartan women. There's one where a mother says to a son come back with your shield or on it. But it's such a good line that popular culture has to get into the ocean of 300. Yeah. Yeah. Frank Miller's graphic novel has it and then it makes

“it sway into the film. Yeah. But do we know whether did Leonidass have children by that time?”

Oh yes of course you said everyone has a child. Yeah including him so his son Plystakis is alive and does succeed him as king afterwards. And he is very much like Leonidass would have done was previously he wouldn't have gone through the Spartan system because he was the error parent.

That's our understanding. Yes. So they get to the muffle eye. Talk us through what we know about

Leonidass and his role during the Greek defense of the muffle eye over. It's a two or three days isn't it? Well there's four or five days waiting and then two and a half days of actual fighting. So Leonidass is in command of all of the Greek forces. Heroditor says he was the most respected man in the Greek army which he has given us no evidence to explain why. So when you're speculating the early was he involved in that campaign that we're not mentioned was he involved in that campaign.

“Maybe he was maybe that's why he was so respected or maybe it's just because Heroditor wants to”

big him up in that way. He gives him a genealogy going all the way back to Heroditor and then therefore Zeus. So he goes through the full thing and casts him like a Homeric hero and there's a lot of Homer, Homer's in the kind of imagery in his account of the battle of the muffle eye as well. So you can see he's definitely he's definitely turning it into an epic story. And how would he have fought at the bastal of the muffle eye? Well, would have fought at the front with everyone else. So

he would have fought as a hot plight. He would have had his big bronze face wouldn't shield. He would have had bronze armor, bronze helmets. So he would have gone in to combat dressed in red like the Spartan steed. So he would have been one of the frontline troops. There's only 300 of them. So they're all in the frontlines. And this bracelet is that bronze kind of shining light

“by Homer color at that time. That's what Xenophon says about later Spartan army. So he says that”

they wore they wore red because it was the manliest color and they had bronze shields because you could polish them easily and they would tarnish slowly. Hi there, I'm Dan, host of Dan Snow's History at Podcast. And I can imagine all these dark winter nights. All you gotta do is curl up with a cup of tea and get lost in the amazing story. Well, I can help you with that. Twice a week, I tell you the most dramatic and extraordinary

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For the best historical stories to get lost in, check out Dan Snow's History. And is there also that story? We'll include this story as you've already mentioned to be going to take them with a large barrel full of salt. But is there another one about the Persian scouts who see the Spartans? And then they notice the Persian scouts, but they say, "Yeah, then they haven't watched us. We're prepared for this. We're ready to dive, need be."

Her auditor says that the Persian spy is sent to watch the Greeks and see what they can see. And just by sheer coincidence, it's the Spartans turn to guard the past and there's a wall there that they've rebuilt to sort of shore up the defenses and the Spartans are there. They're exercising nine Kurds, which is Spartan military practice. They continue their exercises even while on campaign and some of them just sit around combing their hair. And it's a brilliant

story. And when those spy goes back and reports this to Xerxes, he has no idea what this means. So he has to summon Demeratus to ask him, because Demeratus is a company team on his campaign. You can see where Demeratus is going with this. He clearly is imagining himself becoming king of Greece at Xerxes behest. And Demeratus has to explain the Spartans to Xerxes. And that's where he has to give the best description of them. He describes them as the best fighting men on earth

and says that they won't run away because Normus is their master. Spartan custom or lore is their master.

that they will fight where they have been ordered to fight and they will not run away.

“And he explains the coming of their hairy says this is what Spartans do when they're preparing”

to risk their lives. They make themselves look handsome. And Leonid asks, even though he's a king, he wouldn't have been above the lore in Spartan would he? So he would have been very much as at risk as any other Spartan serving there if he returned home but would seem to be a coward. Yeah, absolutely. When Spartans become a citizen and join the Spartan army, they swear, and oath to submit that new arrangement. And while we have very limited source material for it,

the one surviving reference to this oath says that they swore to not break the ranks. So you could interpret that as they swore to fight where they're ordered to fight and not run away. And Leonid asks at this time, is he quite old? Yeah, he's probably late 50s early 60s. It's because part of my thinking was also like imagine if it was also the people that he'd grown up alongside, you know, in the Spartan training that now were the people with them as the 300.

But it seems like that's unlikely if he's, you know, in his late 50s by that time. Yeah, I'd think it'd be more likely men in their prime. Her Roger says it was the usual 300, which might imply they were the hippies, but the hippies are the men aged 20 to 30. And Spartans don't seem to normally marry until 30. So that doesn't kind of work. So it's been suggested maybe they were people who once been the best of the best. So former hippies,

but they must have been mature men to all have living sons. Another big great her. Roger Vacher has probably the wrong word, but a question full of debate. How greatly outnumbered were the Spartans and their allies at the modern life?

Well, I would never trust her, Roger says numbers.

I said earlier that her Roger says likes doing his maths. And his description of the number of Persian forces is a fantastic example of him doing maths. So he has to calculate how many infantry men there are, how many cavalry men there are, how many marines there must be, adds them all together gets 2,700,000 and so on. And then says, but every single one of them would have owned a slave as well.

And then adds that in as well and gets his figure of 5 million, which is obviously absurd. So that would have been like half the population of the planet at the time. And so of locusts going down through Macedonian into northern Greece.

“Yeah. And that's how a Roger just paints it. So they come through. They drown.”

They drain lakes and rivers with their pack animals just drinking up all the water. It's he does sort of paint them like locusts. So they would have been outnumbered, but nothing like the numbers that are Roger to suggest it. Mollonlaby, talk us through this. Okay. So Plutarch says that Zerksy's wrote to Leonidas and ordered him to surrender his arms.

And he then wrote back just two words, Mollonlaby, which translates as come and get them. But a Roger does not mention this. He says that Zerksy's assumed that they would run away and when they didn't, he got angry and eventually ordered it in the tax. So he doesn't, there's moments in Roger to his narrative where if he understood that Leonidas had said Mollonlaby, he would have said that. So I'd say no. But that's saying has taken another life of its own.

“Are there any other particular things by Leonidas that we've missed it from up before hand?”

I can think of that then we were fighting the shade. But I don't think that's Leonidas himself. That's not Leonidas himself according to her Roger to us. He gives that to Dionysys and says that he had a reputation for great width. He has a good line. Plutarch gives it to Leonidas. And he has some other ones. And Plutarch wrote a work called the Manus of Herodotus. And he criticized Herodotus

and for being a lover of Persians and all sorts of things. And he says, and he didn't give Leonidas, he's best one Linus. But that's clearly because the tradition of his best one Linus was invented after the facts. It's up being said by Michael Fasspender doesn't it? It does. Let's wrap up the story of The Mopalai. How does it all come tumbling down? And what do we know about Leonidas during those final hours of the stand at The Mopalai?

Well, it all comes unraveled because there is a way of surrounding the Greeks at The Mopalai

that they know is there. And they've thought they've fixed but ultimately they haven't.

So Leonidas ordered the local folkians to guard this secondary route around where they're occupying the past, thinking that the locals would know what to do. Much ink has been spent saying, why didn't Leonidas order a Spartan officer to oversee the the folkians? Why didn't he do it himself all of that kind of thing? But it's an allied army. The officers are in charge of their own allied

A local Greek named Fiatis tells Xerxes about this in for wanting cash and is rewarded.

“And he's able to lead Hidanis and the best of Xerxes troops, the immortals around to surround”

the Greeks. But according to Rodgers, they find out either by desertors or by the seas interpreting the signs and they find out early enough that Leonidas can give orders for most of the troops to go home. So he's able to leave himself and his men and the men from the city of

this bi and thieves to fight on to basically hold the Persians off to go to buy enough time for the

rest of the soldiers to escape. And Rodgers says there's all sorts of explanations of why this happened but he thinks that Leonidas deliberately did this because he wanted to achieve chaos. Great renown or glory exactly the kind of type of glory that Achilles are striving for in the Eliot. So by fighting and dying he'll get this great reputation and be able to sort of leave on in the way that he actually has done. So whether that's true or not as another matter but

“that's what Rodgers said that he thought was the right explanation. And he would have grown up Leonidas”

he would have heard about him read the classics like the Homer's, the Iliad and the Odyssey

wouldn't he? So he would have known all about these great heroes and wanting to emulate them.

Yeah all ancient Greeks knew the stories of the great heroes. They all knew the Trojan War cycle. They all knew Achilles. They all knew what they were meant to do. And so people like well heroes like Achilles were a paradigm of masculine behaviour and Sparta was particularly obsessed with genealogies of the gods and the stories of the mythical past. So so Menalais King of Sparta, the co-commander against the Trojans. They would have understood

that this was the kind of behaviour they were meant to follow. Wonderful Leonidas for himself was a bit of a menalais. It's interesting to think isn't it?

“The legacy of that figure is rolled in the Spartan royal mindset.”

Yeah and that comes through in Herodotus a story because when Leonidas is killed there's a massive fight over his body and Herodotus says that four times the Spartans were able to force the Persians back and reclaim Leonidas's body. And that's obviously riffing on a Homer's Iliad where there's a great struggle over Achilles, friend Patrick Lus's body which is led by Menalais King of Sparta and three times they're able to

force the Trojans back to reclaim Patrick Lus's body. So the Spartans at the Marbley are even better they do it four times. And so we hear then so in that last stand of the 300 in the Thespians in the past at the Marbley Leonidas is not the last man standing of them all. He falls at the height of the fight industry. Yeah absolutely so so on the final day the Spartans lead out the Thespians and the Thibians beyond the wall to sort of go into a more dangerous

position to try and really take the fight to the Persians and at some point in the morning Leonidas goes down and there is this great fight over his body. The Thibians end up surrendering they clearly lose contact with the rest zirxes has them branded as slaves. What's going on there is a big question but the Thespians and the remaining Spartans end up withdrawing to a to a small bluff where they make a final stand and Roger says by that stage most of the

lost their spears some of them even lost their swords they're just fighting with hands and teeth. So Leonidas's body does it end up in Persian hands? It does yes yes so zirxes after the battle cuts off his head and puts on on a spike on a spike. Yeah so zirxes gets his revenge on the Spartans who've embarrassed him over the two days of fighting at the Marbley so when you think about I've said all that's an embarrassing fiasco they've only held up the Persians for a couple

of days. The portrayal of zirxes anger suggests that this has not been something that he's just been weathering that this is this has been a humiliation that all of his vast hordes have been delayed by just such a small number of Greek troops. And do we then know what happens to Leonidas's body after that? I mean this head has been severed from his body but do the Persians keep hold of

it or is it finally acquired by the Spartans? What do we know? It is eventually re-acquired by the

Spartans and it's one of those gray areas where the sources are a bit weird and they don't make sense but Porsanius the travel writer says that some time afterwards another Porsanius probably the Porsanius who commanded the Greeks at the Battle of Potea the following summer travelled north reclaim Leonidas's remains and brought them back to the Spartan. I had to embody.

so that the Persian invasion failed? Yes so the prophecy from Delphi will all of the Greeks asked

“what they should do and they all got pretty grim answers. So when the Athenians asked Delphi should”

they fight against the Persians they got the answer run away. And the delegates in Delphi were looking so despondent that the one of the locals said to them why don't you ask again see if you

get a better answer and they got a slightly less terrible answer the second time around that said

that there would be great deaths but blessed Salamus and the wooden wall would prevail and domestically it was a leading Athenian statement was able to convince the Athenians all this means our fleet the wooden walls our fleet will be able to win if we fight near Salamus this will be fine. The Spartans got an equally doom-laden message which was Spartable for all a Spartan king will die. So if the Oracle from Delphi is true and Leónadass had this before he said off this may have

explained what his thought process was that he was intending to die to preserve

“Spartus security or it could be the kind of thing that was invented afterwards to explain”

what happens could be hindsight. Absolutely a lot of these articles from Delphi are deliberately

ambiguous a bit vague and genuinely quite obviously made up. Okay so how quickly do we get after the Spartans eventually retrieved Leónadass's body and the Persian invasion has been repelled as Xerxes out of the picture. How long is it before there is a full a very clear coat of Leónadass back in Sparta? Not sure so by the time Herodotus travels there some time in the 450s to 420s it's obvious that there is an official version of what happened and that is

that Leónadass was a great hero and definitely intended to die. The cult for Leónadass depends on when this event of bringing his remains back actually happened because Pozania says King Pozania's did it. The Pozania's who commanded the Greeks at Plotia wasn't a king and he says it was only four years after but what Pozania's was doing there at four years after is a little bit tricky. So it's not entirely certain exactly when but by the time you get to the fourth century

it's quite obvious that there is a a great cult of Leónadass and the victory over the Persians is part of the official Spartan story. And do you know much about the structure of this cult or how Leónadass was worshipped in Sparta over those following centuries? Not much at all really so there's a building in modern Sparta as a classical period structure where the foundation stones are there and that is known as the as the shrine of Leónadass but there is nothing

that will actually concretely link that to Leónadass. No it's just we know from Pozania saying there was cult of Leónadass but we don't really know much beyond that. It was Leónadass remembered outside of Sparta as well in other Greek cities and indeed later with the rise of Macedon and the Hellenistic kingdoms does his name become well known far and wide. Yes and no the Spartans at Thermopoli get remembered and they are very much remembered as the good guys who are almost

one. Leónadass does get remembered and often in an odd kind of way so in the middle ages Leónadass is the king of Athens, who defeated zirxes at Thermopoli and zirxes runs away and ends up getting killed by his own men. So there's even manuscript showing zirxes running away and drinking is getting so thirsty that he drinks from the rivers filled with the blood of his men. And so this whole thing just gets completely mangled. Wow and but like from Roman time is when

the Romans take over Spartans are going back into ancient history. I read in my notes is something called the Leónadayah or something that seems to be there at the time. Yeah so there's the Leónadass games is clearly something that takes place in Sparta and it's something that kind of got revived when the Romans ended up going to war against the Parthians. So as they're about to go and fight against the dreaded foreigners in the east they sort of

revive this Spartan festival celebrating their great victory against the against the foreigners from

the east. So that's where we always get Leónadass's name in Roman times but probably not much

else apart from that. No, not really no. Gosh what is there anything else we can mention about the legacy of Leónadass before modern times that people really picked up on as you know the the Spartan king who loses life at Thermopoli leading these 300 Spartans and the Thespians and so on.

“I think a really brilliant source and one that we I never make my students read is there's an epic”

poem Richard Glover in the in the late eighteenth century which is an absolutely massive epic poem

success in England and it was a massive success in continental Europe and translated into German like

“nine times that's that sort of thing. So so Leónadass has been remembered and then discussed and”

debated and then in more modern times the at the Battle of Stalingrad both the Soviets and the Germans were casting themselves as like Leónadass and the 300 Spartans which is odd when you think about it that way that both sides could identify him with him the defenders and the attackers could both cast themselves as as as Spartan like. That's so interesting. Do you think there's also a sense that I mean Sepulta can his parallel lives his lives of eminent Greeks and Romans. He interesting.

He doesn't include runner Leónadass does he? He said he did so in that work on the malice of Herodotus.

He rips into Herodotus for all of the things he gets wrong in his narrative and he has this whole

section on Thermopoli and he says that Herodotus left out the good one liners from Leónadass and his fellow soldiers because there's one where someone said an old man who he's tried to send home with a message and he said I came to fight not be a postman and decide to fight die on the final day and Herodotus has none of those and he said and I'll redress this when I write my life of Leónadass but no life of Leónadass survived who we would have paired with

us a Roman would be a really interesting question as well. Exactly who would have he? I guess he is merciless or someone like that who tries to also throw themselves in in a in a in a battle.

“But it I think there was going to go with that question was that of course there's no Shakespeare”

play of Leónadass either. So I was thinking like would Leónadass's name have been even better

remembered down through history before the 20th century if he'd have had you know a widespread life in Plutarch that survived and a play from William Shakespeare as we have lines in Cleopatra and Judea season that life. I would think so and I think if if they had been a Plutarch life you could imagine Shakespeare thinking in the tragedy of Leónadass would have been perfect in that way. Absolutely. This has been a fascinating insight into the story of Leónadass and

of course last but not least we should mention his legacy nearer the present day whether it's TV or film or comic books and they're like he's had even more of a resurgence over the past few decades. Yeah absolutely I mean I think many people of my age saw repeats of the the 300 Spartans from the 1960s on on television and that was George in sound of epic from the 1960s wasn't it? Yeah absolutely and a lot of money was spent on that and it was done in collaboration with the Greek government

and all of all of the extras like all of the Persians and most of the Greeks were played by Greek citizens doing military service. So it's a huge production and and Leónadass is this wonderful charismatic commander with really short hair because the Spartans didn't have long hair in the 1960s. So there was that and that was directly this a direct link between the 300 Spartans and Frank Miller's graphic novel 300 because Frank Miller's in interviews has pointed out that

he watched that when he was were clearly watching with his dad and there was a moment towards the towards the end of the film where he said dad the good guys are going to lose aren't they and he could see where this was coming and and so to really had an impact on him so having made his name as a superhero comic writer he decided to do something historical and really put it out there and came up with 300 and and then that became the film 300 as well. Steven Pressel is novel

the gates of fire it's about the Marpoly Leónadass has a huge role in that D&E skis the well fight the shade guy is in many ways the real hero of Presfield story but Leónadass is a is a central figure in that novel as well. How do you think Leónadass's legacy will go on

“from the present day I guess like the good and the bad potentially? I think well ever people see”

the Spartans at the Marpoly as the good guys he will be painted as the leader of the good guys the the great hero who sacrificed himself the more we start to unpick what the Spartans were like play with the significance or lack their all of defeating the Persians his legacy will appear differently on think. Andrew this has been such a great chat last but certainly not least you cover the story of Leónadass and the wider story of ancient Sparta in your new book which is called Sparta

the rise and fall of an ancient superpower and it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the turn to come back on the show today. Thank you for having me. Well there you go there was Dr Andrew Bayless talking all the things that life of Leónadass I hope you enjoyed the episode thank you so much for listening. Last few things from me you know what I'm going to say please make sure to follow the ancient

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