40 Fun Facts About Leonidas I

The film 300 shows Leonidas kicking a Persian envoy into a pit; what did Sparta really do to Persian heralds?

Threw them down a well: when the heralds of Darius came asking for earth and water, Sparta told them to fetch both from the bottom. Athens threw its Persian heralds into a pit.

A Persian scout sent to spy on Leonidas's Spartans at Thermopylae was amazed to find them doing what?

Combing their hair was what Spartans did before risking their lives, an exiled Spartan king explained to Xerxes. The Persian ruler had found the scout's report laughable.

Told that Persian arrows would blot out the sun, a Spartan at Thermopylae joked his side would fight where?

In the shade, said the soldier Dienekes, who called the warning good news. Plutarch, writing centuries later, gave the same joke to Leonidas himself.

A chocolate maker called Leonidas, with the Spartan king on its logo, was founded in 1913 in which country?

Belgium is home to the brand, started by a confectioner of Greek heritage named Leonidas Kestekides. His nephew later picked the warrior king's image to honour those roots.

The name of Leonidas, the Spartan king who fell at Thermopylae, can be read as 'son of' which animal?

A lion is what Leon means in Greek, and Leonidas was named after his grandfather Leon. Strictly, the name means 'descendant of Leon'.

Thermopylae, the coastal pass where Leonidas made his last stand, has a Greek name meaning what?

Hot Gates refers to the sulphur springs that still rise beside the pass. Greek myth also placed one of the entrances to the underworld there.

Told by Xerxes to hand over his weapons, Leonidas reportedly answered 'Molon labe', meaning what?

Come and take them is the usual translation of the two Greek words, first recorded centuries later by Plutarch. They are inscribed beneath his bronze statue at the pass.

Which Scottish actor trained for four months to play a muscular King Leonidas in the 2006 film 300?

Gerard Butler said he wanted to look really strong, so he followed a high-intensity workout before shooting. The part is often described as his breakthrough role.

Which athletic festival, with its sacred truce, was under way when Leonidas marched north to Thermopylae?

The Olympic Games were on, so the Greek allies sent only advance guards and meant to follow in force. A Persian general was later astonished to hear the winners' prize was an olive wreath.

Which elite Persian corps of 10,000 did Xerxes send against Leonidas on the first day at Thermopylae?

The Immortals earned the name because every man lost was replaced at once, keeping the unit at full strength. Even they could not break the Greek line in the narrow pass.

Leonidas belonged to a Spartan royal house that claimed descent from which Greek mythical hero?

Heracles was the claimed forefather of Sparta's royalty, through descendants said to have conquered the city. Leonidas was counted as the 17th king of his house.

Which local Greek betrayed Leonidas by showing the Persians a mountain path around the pass at Thermopylae?

Ephialtes hoped Xerxes would reward him, but he got nothing and ended up with a price on his head. He fled to Thessaly and was later killed in an unrelated quarrel.

Before Thermopylae, which famous oracle warned that Sparta must lose either its city or its king?

Delphi gave the warning in verse, and Leonidas is said to have marched north convinced he would not come back. Sparta mourned a king, and the city survived.

Which director filmed Leonidas's last stand almost entirely against bluescreens for the 2006 hit 300?

Zack Snyder shot the film in sixty days inside a studio, then had more than 1,500 visual effects shots fill in the skies and landscapes around the actors.

Sparta in the time of Leonidas had an unusual form of monarchy; what set it apart from other Greek states?

Two kings ruled jointly, one from each of two rival royal families said to descend from twin brothers. Leonidas shared the throne with a king named Leotychidas.

In 1941, Allied troops held Thermopylae, the pass where Leonidas fell, against which invading country?

Germany was delayed there by Australian and New Zealand troops for long enough to cover a British evacuation. They fought mere metres from the ancient battlefield.

The terse wit of Leonidas's Spartans gave English which adjective, taken from their home region's name?

Laconic comes from Laconia, the region around Sparta, whose people were known for blunt replies. Asked by Philip of Macedon if he should come as friend or foe, they said: 'Neither.'

Which Greek historian left the main surviving account of Leonidas at Thermopylae, in Book VII of his Histories?

Herodotus, often called the Father of History, was a small child when the battle was fought. One scholar says we write Thermopylae's history with him or not at all.

A religious festival made Sparta's army miss which 490 BC battle, a decade before Leonidas fought?

Marathon was won by Athens almost alone, because Spartan law forbade marching to war during the festival. The same holiday is why Leonidas took only a small force north.

On his way to face Leonidas, Xerxes reportedly had which stretch of water whipped for wrecking his bridges?

The Hellespont was given three hundred lashes, and fetters were thrown into it, after the first bridges' cables snapped. A second pair of bridges carried the army across.

Which Spartan woman, remembered for her sharp advice, married her half-uncle Leonidas and bore his heir?

Gorgo first appears in the ancient accounts as a girl of eight or nine, warning her father not to let a visitor's bribes corrupt him. He took her advice and sent the man away.

Expecting to die at Thermopylae, Leonidas is said to have picked for his 300 only Spartans who had what?

Living sons would carry on each family's name, the usual reading of his choice. Three hundred was the customary size of a Spartan king's guard.

When Leonidas sent most allies away from Thermopylae, 700 men from which Greek city refused to leave?

Thespiae's 700 hoplites, under a general named Demophilus, stayed and died with the Spartans. A monument to them was unveiled near the Spartan one in 1997.

After Thermopylae, what did a furious Xerxes reportedly order done to the corpse of Leonidas?

Beheaded, with the head set on a stake: the order was seen as sacrilege. Earlier his men had driven the Persians back four times to recover the body.

A monument to Leonidas was unveiled in 2009 in Brunswick, a suburb of which Australian city?

Melbourne's Brunswick is nicknamed the suburb of the Spartans, after the many migrants from the Sparta region who settled there in the 1950s and 1960s.

Which comic book creator, inspired by a 1962 film he saw as a boy, made Leonidas the hero of the series 300?

Frank Miller drew every page as a double-page spread, with painted colours by Lynn Varley. The five-issue series won three Eisner Awards in 1999.

Which 2018 video game opens with a prologue in which Leonidas fights the Persians at Thermopylae?

Assassin's Creed Odyssey then jumps forward to a mercenary hero who is the king's grandchild and who fights with his spear.

Leonidas's wife is credited with decoding a secret warning of Xerxes's invasion that was hidden beneath what?

A layer of wax covered the wooden tablet, so it looked blank until she told the Spartans to scrape it clean. The sender was an exiled Spartan then at the Persian court.

Which Athenian statesman proposed holding Thermopylae under Leonidas while a fleet blocked the nearby straits?

Themistocles led the Athenian ships at Artemisium during the battle. When the pass fell the fleet pulled back to Salamis, where it later smashed the Persian navy.

Leonidas's nephew Pausanias avenged Thermopylae a year later by winning which decisive land battle?

Plataea destroyed the army Xerxes had left behind in Greece and ended the invasion. Pausanias commanded as regent, ruling on behalf of the dead king's heir, who was still a child.

Leonidas, the third son of his father, was a product of which famously harsh Spartan training system?

The agoge enrolled Spartan boys at the age of seven. They went barefoot, and from the age of 12 were given just one cloak a year.

Which board of five elected Spartan magistrates approved sending Leonidas north with only an advance force?

The ephors were elected every year, and they alone stayed seated when a king appeared. They judged the Persian threat urgent enough to send troops out during a sacred festival.

Which Greek poet is usually credited with the epitaph telling passers-by that Sparta's dead lie at Thermopylae?

Simonides was alive at the time of the battle, and the two-line poem was cut into a stone on the Spartans' burial mound. That stone is lost; a new one was engraved in 1955.

Why does the battlefield where Leonidas fought, once a strip beside the sea, now lie kilometres inland?

Silt filled in the gulf over the centuries and pushed the shoreline away. The ground the armies actually fought on now lies buried under about 20 metres of soil.

Which Spartan festival of Apollo kept the main army at home when Leonidas marched to Thermopylae?

The Carneia honoured Apollo as a god of flocks and herds, and Spartan law forbade military activity while it lasted. Part of it had citizens feasting in tents, as if in camp.

Leonidas became king after which half-brother, declared insane and chained in prison, was found dead?

Cleomenes was found dead of knife wounds in his cell, and Sparta ruled it a suicide. Some modern scholars suspect murder, since Leonidas was next in line for the throne.

Which Greek soldier, sent home from Leonidas's last stand with an eye infection, was shunned as a coward?

Aristodemus was refused fire and conversation by his fellow Spartans, because a comrade with the same illness had gone back to fight blind. He died a year later in a reckless charge.

Which young son of Leonidas inherited his throne after Thermopylae, with relatives ruling as regents for him?

Pleistarchus reigned for about 22 years but died without an heir. The throne then passed to the son of the cousin who had once ruled as his regent.

Which exiled Spartan king travelled with Xerxes and warned him not to underestimate the men of Leonidas?

Demaratus had been deposed about a decade earlier and given cities in Asia Minor by the Persians. He told Xerxes the Spartans were the bravest men in Greece.

Leonidas posted 1,000 men from which Greek region to guard the mountain path that the Persians later used?

Phocis supplied the guards, who heard the Persians coming through the oak leaves at dawn. They fell back to a hilltop to make a stand, and the enemy simply marched past.