Ironically, if Dorieus has not left Sparta, he would have become king after Cleomenes, as the king was deposed in BC — reportedly on grounds of insanity — and had no sons to succeed him. The crown passed to Leonidas as the next eldest surviving son of Anaxandrias, when he was around 50 years of age.
As well as his doubly royal blood his parents were both from the Agiad line , Leonidas would have considered his agoge training an important symbol of his worthiness to be king. Before he succeeded to the throne, Leonidas had married Gorgo, daughter of Cleomenes — marrying his niece like his father did before him.
She bore Leonidas a son and heir, Pleistarchus. It is said that the king visited the Oracle at Delphi, which was consulted about important matters of state throughout Ancient Greece, and the Oracle delivered a grand verse that essentially told him that he must lay down his life to prevent his kingdom from being laid waste by Persia. He had with him just elite Spartan soldiers and slaves, to which he added as he marched cross-country through other city-states, ending up with a total army of between 4, and 7, men.
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. Last Stand of the The Kill Zone. 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. As he assembled his mighty army, which even modern scholarship concedes may have totaled 25 million, he dispatched a fifth column of spies and diplomats to demand the submission of the Greeks. This army was well-stocked with cavalry and had at its core the 10,man elite body known as the Immortals.
A powerful navy significantly larger than anything the Greeks could muster anchored the seaward flank of the army as it marched. The Persian force was centralized and ably led; its only flaw, perhaps, was the preponderance of ethnic units subject to the Empire who might be counted on to fight with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The immensity of the Persian threat compelled Athens and Sparta to set aside former rivalries and work together.
Athens, with her mighty fleet, placed herself under Spartan command. Feuding was endemic among the Greek states, however, and would disrupt Greek ability to react, especially in the first months. In particular, Greek indecision about holding the strategic Pass of Tempe resulted in its early abandonment to the Persians. Where to go in Greece?
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