A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

'LEONIDAS. LEONIDAS. 75r
died' [DiRIEuts]. When Greece was invaded by Strab. i: P 10, ix. p. 429; Ael; V.H. -iii; 25;
Xerxes, the Greek congress, which was held at Just. ii. 11;'C. Nep. Them. 3; Val. Max. iii. 2,
the Isthmus of Corinth, determined that a stand Ext. 3; Cic. de Fin. ii. 19, 30, Tuse. Disp. i. 42,
should be made against the enemy at the pass of 49; Simon. xv. Antwol. Graec. vol. i. p. 61, ed.
Thermopylae, and Leonidas had the command of Jacobs.) In the reign of Leonidas we arrive at an
the force destined for this service. The number of exact chronology (says Clinton, F. H. vol. ii. p.
his army is varionsly stated: according to Hero- 209), which we have gradually approached in the
dotus, it amounted to somewhat more than 5000 two preceding reigns of Anaxandrides and Cleomen, of whom 300 were Spartans; in all proba- menes I. [E. E.]
bility, the regular band of (so called) trfreis, LEO'NIDAS 11. (AewvC'&as), king of Sparta,
selected by the Hippagretae, roes KaTseTerwTas was son of the traitor, Cleonymus, and 28th of the
Tpl7tlKoLovs,as Herodotus calls them (comp. MUller, Agids. He acted as guardian to his infant relaDor. book iii. 12. ~ 5). The remainder of the tive, Areus II., on whose death, at the age of eight
Lacedaemonian force was to follow after the cele- years, he ascended the throne, -about B. c. 256,
bration of the festival of the Carneia. Plutarch being by this time considerably advanced in life.
affirms that funeral games were celebrated in honour A great part of his' earlier years he had spent in
of Leonidas and his comrades, before their depar- the courts of Seleucus Nicator and his satraps, and
ture from Sparta; according also to him and had even married an Asiatic wife, by whom he
Diodorus, it was said at the same time by the had two children. From this it is reasonable to
self-devoting hero, that the men he took with him suppose that he reversed the policy of his predeceswere indeed few to fight, but enough to die;. and, sors, who had cultivated a connection with Egypt:
when his wife, Gorgo, asked him what hislast wishes and it is at least an ingenious conjecture of Droywere, he answered, " Marry a brave husband and sen's, that the adventurer, Xanthippus, who enbear brave sons." All this, however, has very tered at this period into the Carthaginian service,
much the air of a late and rhetorical addition to and whom heidentifies with the general of Ptolemy
the story; nor is it certain that Leonidas and his Euergetes in his war with Seleucus Callinicus, may
band looked forward to their own death as the in- have been' one of those who, as favourers of the
evitable result of their expedition, though Herodotus Egyptian alliance, were driven from Sparta by the
tells us that he selected for it such only as had sons party of Leonidas. (Droysen, Ilellenism2s, vol. ii.
to leave behind them,and mentions an oracle besides, pp. 296, 347; comp. Arnold's Rome, vol. ii. p.
which declared that Sparta could not be saved from 589.) The habits which Leonidas had contracted
ruin but by the death of her king. When the abroad, very different from the'old Spartan simGreek army was assembled at Thermopylae, there plicityv, caused him to regard with strong dislike
was a prevalent desire on the part of the Pelo- the projected reforms of Agis IV., and he laboured
ponnesians to fall back on the Isthmus, and make at first to counteract them by secret intrigues and
their stand against the Persians there; and it was by the slanderous insinuation that the object of
mainly through the influence of Leonidas that the Agis was to bribe the poor with the property of
scheme, selfish at once and impolitic, was abandoned. the rich, and thus to make himself tyrant of Sparta.
The sayings ascribed to him before the battle by When the measure of his colleague was actually
Plutarch are well-known and characteristic enough brought forward, Leonidas opposed it with arguof a Spartan, but are probably the rhetorical in- ments ludicrously weak, but succeeded, nevertheventions of a later age. When it was known less, in obtaining its rejection in the senate by a
that the treachery of the Malianr Ephialtes had be- majority of one. It thus became necessary for the
trayed the mountain path of the Anopaea to the reformers to get rid of him, and accordingly the
Persians, after their vain attempts to force their ephor Lysander revived an old law, which forbade
way through the pass of Thermopylae, Leonidas, a Heracleid to marry a foreigner, and affixed the
declaring that he and the Spartans under his com- penalty of death to a sojourn in a foreign land.
mand must needs remain in the post they had been There was also an ancient custom at Sparta, of
sent to guard, dismissed all the other Greeks, ex- which he took advantage to excite the stronger
cept the Thespian and Theban forces. Then, be- prejudice against Leonidas. Every ninth year the
fore the body of Persians, who were crossing the ephors sat in silence to observe the heavens on a
mountain under Hydarnes, could arrive to attack clear and moonless night; and if a star was seen
him in the rear, he advanced from the narrow pass to shoot in a particular direction, it was interpreted
and charged the myriads of the enemy with his as a sign of some offence against the gods on the
handful of troops, hopeless now of preserving their part of the kings, who were therefore to be sus.
lives, and anxious only to sell them dearly. In the pended from their office till an oracle from Delphi
desperate battle which ensued, Leonidas himself or Olympia- should declare in their favour. Lyfell soon. His body was rescued by the Greeks, sander professed to have seen the sign, and referred
after a ~violent struggle. On the hillock in the pass, it to the displeasure of heaven at the illegal conduct
where the remnant of the Greeks made their last of Leonidas. He also accused him, according to
stand, a lion of stone (so Herodotus tells us) was Pausanias, of having bound himself by an oath,
set up in his honour; and Pausanias says that his while yet a boy, to'his father Cleonymus, to work
bones were brought t6 Sparta forty years after, by the downfall of Sparta. Leonidas, not venturing
one named Pausanias; but if he was the same who to abide his trial, took refuge in the temple of
commanded at the battle of Plataca, " forty" must Athena Chalcioecus, where his daughter Cheilonis
be an erroneous reading for " four" (see Larcher, joined him. Sentence of deposition having been
ad Herod. vii. 225). The later story of Leonidas passed against him in his absence, the throne was
and his followers perishing in a night-attack on the transferred to his son-in-law, Cleombrotus; and
Persian camp is unworthy of credit. (Herod. vii. the ephors of the succeeding year having failed in
175, 202-225; Pans. iii. 4, 14, vii. 15; Diod. their attempt to crush.Lysander and his colleague,
xi. 4-11; Plut. de Herod. Mal. 32, Apoph. Lac..; Mandrocleidas, by a prosecution [see Vol. I. p. 731,