Leonidas smile
Leonidas I of Sparta earned his place in history with his death at Thermopylae Pass, defending democratic Greece against a crushing invasion of autocratic Persia. Their conscious, indeed joyous self-sacrifice for the sake of their civilization has captivated and inspired generations for nearly 2,500 years. However, much less attention has been paid to her life, largely because few hard facts are known about her, not even her date of birth. And yet even the faint footprints left a hint of a more intriguing personality than the stereotype of the Spartan soldier suggested by a focus on Thermopylae alone.
The very circumstances of Leonidas’ birth undoubtedly influenced his character. Leonidas was the third son of King Anaxandridas, possibly a twin, and certainly one of four children born together in age. The eldest of Anaxandridas’ children, however, was born to a second wife forced into Anaxandridas because he refused to divorce his first wife, although he appeared to be sterile. Only after this second wife gave birth to a son, Cleomenes, Anaxandridas’ first and favorite wife had three children, Dorieus, Leonidas, and Cleombrotus, in that order.
Some historians have assumed that Leonidas, the son of this first wife, fed on hatred of the “other woman” and her “bastard” with mother’s milk. Certainly his older brother, Dorieus, hoped to become king upon his father’s death. When the Ephors selected Cleomenes instead, Dorieus refused to accept his half brother as king and instead left Sparta twice to establish colonies. This apparent rivalry between the children of Anaxandridas’ two wives, combined with the fact that Leonidas was the immediate beneficiary of Cleomenes’ death, has led some historians to postulate that Leonidas had something to do with Cleomenes’ death.
While sibling rivalry, a powerful and universal phenomenon dating back to Cain and Abel, may well have shaped Leonidas’ character, there is more evidence that it was directed at his older brother Dorieus than at his older half-brother Cleomenes. We know for a fact that Leonidas did not he accompanied Dorieus on any of his expeditions, but instead remained in Sparta, accepting Cleomenes as his king. In addition, Leonidas married the daughter of Cleomenes.
The sibling rivalry between Dorieus and Leonidas could have made Leonidas a de facto ally of Cleomenes, and a friendly relationship with Cleomenes in turn would have allowed Leonidas to gain valuable experience in diplomacy, statecraft, and command at court. of Cleomenes. Given that Cleomenes reigned for 30 years and is considered by some historians to be one of the greatest kings of Sparta, such learning would have been an important factor in determining Leonidas’ abilities and reputation throughout the Greek world and helping to explain his later role as leader of the anti-persian coalition. Thus, the bare facts suggest that Leonidas and his older half-brother Cleomenes had at least one working relationship that did not end in fratricide.
But Leonidas’ position as the third son shaped his life in another, possibly more important way. The heir apparent to a Spartan king was exempt from the harsh public education known as agoge. Leonidas, as a third son, was not. Thus, while Cleomenes trained for royalty, Leonidas learned to endure hardship and pain, and literally stole food alongside all the other Spartan boys of his generation. These shared experiences create strong bonds of camaraderie or reveal weaknesses of character. The fact that Leonidas had no trouble finding volunteers to die with him tells us that Leonidas was well liked by his generation of Spartan citizens. His brother Dorieus, on the other hand, was unable to convince more than a handful of young men to join him in the glorious, and by no means doomed, adventure of establishing a Spartan colony!
Leonidas’ relationship with his wife is equally revealing. Gorgo was the kind of woman abhorred in the rest of the Greek world, a woman with her own opinion and the audacity to express it in public. She enters the story by telling her father to fire an Ionian tyrant (Aristagoras) who came to ask for Spartan military aid. But his most famous quote was in response to an Athenian woman, who wanted to know “why only Spartan women rule their men.” Gorgo replied: “Because only Spartan women produce men.” With that, she testified that Leonidas, like other Spartans, was man enough not to fear the wit or independence of women.
Gorgo’s exchange with the anonymous Athenian woman is intriguing for another reason: since Athenian women were not supposed to be seen (let alone heard) in public and were certainly not taken on a trip, the exchange almost certainly took place. in Athens. This suggests that Leonidas was one of those rare Spartans who crossed the borders of Lacedaemon and even came out of the Peloponnese. prior to went north to Thermopylae. Exposure to the outside world, at least other parts of Greece, would go a long way to explaining why Leonidas cared about the rest of Greece, not just his own backyard like most of his compatriots.
It is even conceivable that Leonidas led the Spartan force that arrived, too late, to aid Athens in Marathon in 490 BC. The Spartan constitution at that time required that their armies be led by one of their kings, but in the summer of 490 BC. C. Cleomenes was in exile or had already gone mad and Leotiquidas was in exile or in disgrace. The Spartan delay in responding to Athens’ desperate pleas for help may well have had less to do with the phase of the moon (the official excuse) than with the fact that neither of the two kings was fit to lead an army, and Sparta was ashamed to admit it. !
In such circumstances, it is easy to imagine that the task of leading the army fell to Leonidas, even though he was not yet King. This could even explain why ancient historians do not name the Spartan commander; Leonidas arrived, but kept a low personal profile. This thesis would also help explain Leonidas’ behavior ten years later. The memory of arriving too late in Marathon could have been the psychological factor that drove him relentlessly to Thermopylae. Rather than return too late, he was prepared to march north with only 300 Spartans.
Leonidas had not been born heir, nor did he covet what was not his, as his brother Dorieus had done. When the Persian Emperor Ahasuerus offered to make him king of all Greece, he replied: “If you understood what is honorable in life, you would avoid coveting what belongs to others. Of my nation.”
However, it was more than an ordinary Spartan rank. Leonidas himself expressed this best when one man complained that he was no better than the others. “But if I weren’t better than you,” Leonidas replied, “I shouldn’t be king.” This replica implied a fanatical belief in the superiority of royal blood, inconceivable for a product of Spartan agoge, or that Leonidas’ own ascension to the throne was based on merit. Considering that various ancient sources claim that Leonidas had a twin brother, it is plausible that at the time of Cleomenes’ death, Leonidas was chosen over his twin (Cleombrotus) because he enjoyed more respect among peers. Since both Leonidas and Cleombrotus were products of the agoge, this would further suggest that Leonidas had demonstrated superiority of character in the way that the Sparta constitution was designed to encourage and reward.
Interestingly, however, Leonidas was revered not only by the men who knew him best, his peers, but evidently by the wider Greek community, who were willing to elect him commander-in-chief of the anti-Persian coalition. While this was primarily a tribute to Sparta’s preeminence in military affairs, it should not be overlooked that Sparta had two kings: the Agiad Leonidas and the Eurypontid Leotychidas. It is significant that none of the chronicles registers doubts or debates, much less disagreements about who would lead the allied Greek forces. This means that his contemporaries outside Lacedaemon credited Leonidas with the ability to rally the scared smaller Greek cities, retain Athenian respect, and lead an effective military campaign against overwhelming adversity.
But Leonidas had a double burden. On the one hand, he was chosen by the Allies to organize and command an effective defense against the Persians. On the other hand, the Oracle of Delphi had warned him (with exceptional clarity that smacks of bribery or pro-Persian sentiment) that:
Hear, O Spartans of the open plains:
Or Xerxes will plunder your gentle city
And chain your women and your children,
Or you will mourn a king of great renown.
Leonidas’ response was to tell the Ephors that he had “decided” to die, that is, that he was willing to die to avoid enslavement of the women and children of Sparta. This is what any honorable king would have done. What strikes Leonidas is the joy and circumspection with which he did it.
Leonidas was not a fanatic. He did not throw himself at the Persians on the first day as a berserker. Nor was he a fanatic, dragging his men with him into a bloodbath of defiant hatred. The fact that Leonidas only brought volunteers with living children to Thermopylae shows that Leonidas foresaw the possibility that they would all die, not that he hoped or wanted everyone to share his fate. He is quoted responding to a man who complained about the few men he had brought to Thermopylae with the words: “I will certainly bring many men to meet death.” Since every life was valuable to him, three hundred was a great number of men to risk. Altogether, Leonidas’ attitude seems rather to presage Shakespeare’s Henry V (Act IV, Scene 3) where Plantagenet says: “If we are marked to die, we are enough to make the loss of our country, and if to live, less men most of the honor. “
Leonidas knew that he had to die to satisfy the gods and fulfill the oracle, but until the last day, he hoped that at least some of his companions would be saved from their personal destiny. Chronicles record that when it became clear that the Spartans were caught up in the Persian pincer movement, Leonidas attempted to send some men to safety.
Desiring to save the young men, but knowing that they would absolutely reject this, he gave each one a dispatch and sent them to the ephors. He also wanted to save three of the mature men, but they read his mind and refused to accept the dispatches. [1]
Leonidas valued each and every one of his 300.
According to the accounts, Leonidas was also a man with cold nerves and dry humor, who used his brain and strength in battle to achieve the best possible results: maximizing enemy losses, minimizing allied casualties, and standing firm in the face of odds. overwhelming. And when it became clear that the Pass was no longer defensible, not only did his Spartan comrades stay with him “in obedience to his laws,” but the Thespians also chose to die rather than depart. The Thespians had not been elevated to this destiny and their sacrifice of more than 300 was a tribute to the leadership of Leonidas.
Leonidas had “something” that imposed the respect of his contemporaries to an exceptional decree, more than Miltiades, Themistocles or Pausanias. Modern man may never know exactly what it was, but a contemporary work of art found in Sparta believed to portray Leonidas shows him smiling. Whether the statue is really a portrait of Leonidas or not, it reflects his spirit and almost allows us to capture something of his charisma throughout the centuries.