Leonidas I

~540–480 BCE · Spartan (Greece) · Classical Greece, Persian Wars

Known for: Spartan king who led 300 warriors against the entire Persian army at Thermopylae—dying to the last man

Leonidas I led 300 Spartan warriors (plus several thousand other Greek allies) to hold the narrow pass at Thermopylae against Xerxes' massive Persian invasion force in 480 BCE. When a traitor showed the Persians a mountain path to outflank the Greeks, Leonidas dismissed most of his army and stayed with his 300 Spartans and about 1,100 other Greeks to fight a suicidal rearguard action.

They held for three days before being overwhelmed and killed to the last man. The sacrifice at Thermopylae became the foundational myth of Western civilization's resistance to tyranny. The epitaph at the battle site reads: 'Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.'

His sacrifice bought time for the Greek fleet to regroup and win at Salamis, which ultimately saved Greece and Western civilization from Persian conquest.

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