Leonidas I

Leonidas I was a king of Sparta who commanded the Greek force defending the pass of Thermopylae during Xerxes’s invasion in 480 BC. After the Persian army found a route around the position, Leonidas dismissed much of the allied force and remained with Spartans, Thespians and others in a final defence. He was killed, and Persian troops mutilated his body. The defeat became a lasting symbol of sacrifice and resistance.

Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire is the best-known modern historical novel about Leonidas and Thermopylae, presenting Spartan society through the recollections of a survivor. He also appears in numerous novels and retellings of the Persian Wars. Fiction often celebrates heroic self-sacrifice, but responsible portrayals also confront Sparta’s rigid hierarchy and dependence on the coerced labour of the helots.

In non-fiction, Leonidas I is discussed in Adrian Goldsworthy’s Athens and Sparta. Adrian Goldsworthy’s Athens and Sparta approaches the subject through empire, conquest and resistance, social change and the pressures of ordinary life, and political ambition and government.