Leonidas

“ Far below he caught a glimpse of the plain, where miles of troops, horse and foot, were crawling like ants toward the pass. The enemy gave him no time to see more. They raised an exultant shout and dashed upon him with lowered lances. Although Leonidas and his men fought with desperation, the Spartan realized that they were not strong enough to hold their ground. The mere weight of their opponents forced them back, inch by inch, until their horses were struggling on the brink of the slope to the bed of the stream.
"Let us die where we stand!" Leonidas shouted. "Remember that we are Greeks! ”

“ He paused, and Azemilcus made no reply; but his smile came back and his eyes wandered toward a table where a great flagon of wine had been set.
"There may yet be time to save ourselves and you," Leonidas continued. "If you can get rid of us for the present, you will have nothing to fear. You can deny your son's story and it will be attributed to a clumsy plot to overthrow you. Is there no way out of the palace that is not guarded?"
"None that I know," the king replied.
The chancellor uttered a clucking sound in his throat that seemed involuntary. Leonidas gripped him by the shoulder. ”

“ While Demosthenes spoke, not a word was uttered in the group around Clearchus. The young man sat with flushed cheeks and shining eyes, tingling with a desire to sacrifice life itself, if need there were, to revenge the wrongs of Athens and crush the insolent Macedonian. Leonidas listened with hands clenched and with every nerve at tension, like a hound of pure race straining at his leash toward the quarry. Aristotle was gravely attentive, and even Chares, though he could not be aroused from his lazy pose, followed the oration with evident enjoyment. ”

“ Leonidas did not like the plan of equality, and soon openly opposed it, although his son-in-law Cleombrotus sided with Agis, and upheld it.
But the people were eager for the new division which would make them all equal as of old; and they were so angry with Leonidas for his resistance, that they rose up against him, and proposed to depose him by reviving an old law which forbade the ruling of a king who married a foreign wife.
Leonidas had time to flee to the Temple of Athene; and when the ephors called him to appear before them, he refused to do so, because he feared for his life. ”

“ After all that may be said of the absurdity and folly of throwing away the lives of three hundred men in a case like this, so utterly and hopelessly desperate, there is still something in the noble generosity with which Leonidas dismissed the other Greeks, and in the undaunted resolution with which he determined himself to maintain his ground, which has always strongly excited the admiration of mankind. ”

“ Leonidas shot him a quick glance, and it seemed to him that the Theban's face had aged and grown grave over night.
"I wonder what Clearchus and Artemisia and little Chares are doing," Chares went on. "I would like to see them again. May the Gods give them happiness!"
"Yes, and I shall be happy too when you have built your palace beside them," Leonidas replied. "It will have to be a palace, for Thais will be satisfied with nothing less."
Chares smiled a little sadly and shook his head.
"That is not for me," he said. "I shall never have a home and children of my own." ”

“ Leonidas, then, thought that at least he could hold the Pass till the games were over, and his countrymen could join him. But when he found, on arriving at Thermopylæ, that he would have to hold two positions, the Pass itself, and the mountain path, of whose existence he had not been aware, then some of his army wished to return home. But Leonidas refused to let them retreat, and bade the Phocians guard the path across the hills, while he sent home for reinforcements. He could not desert the people whom he had come to protect. ”

“ Leonidas shook his head and sipped the wine that a slave had brought for his refreshment. He knew that she referred to the site that they had reserved for Chares and Thais.
"It is too late," he replied, half regretfully. "As we have lived, so we must die."
Artemisia slipped her hand within that of Clearchus, while the Spartan followed with his eyes the glancing sails of a vessel whose prow was turned toward the north and the rugged hillsides of his native land. Their reflections were interrupted by the children, who had tired of their play and were seeking new diversion. ”

“ Ilse said to her husband: "When Leonidas died with his heroes, he saved his countrymen from the rule of foreign barbarians; but after him many thousands of these glorious men fell in the civil wars of the cities. In these quarrels the people became deteriorated, and before long other strangers came and deprived their descendants of their freedom. For what end did these many thousands die?--of what use was all the hatred, and enthusiasm, and party zeal?--it was all in vain, it was all a token of decay. Man is here like a grain of sand that is trodden down into the earth. ”

“ Leonidas sank in death, but his men fought on more fiercely still, to keep the foe back from his body. Here many of the Persian chiefs perished, among them two brothers of Xerxes. It was like a combat of the Iliad rather than a contest in actual war. Finally the Greeks, worn out, reduced in numbers, their best weapons gone, fell back behind the wall, bearing the body of their chief. Here they still fought, with daggers, with their unarmed hands, even with their mouths, until the last man fell dead. ”

“ The deity, in making you the instrument of Greece’s freedom, has placed you far above all your predecessors in glory: in concluding this business so conduct yourself that your reputation may be still increased, and that no barbarian may ever again attempt to perpetrate atrocious actions against Greece. When Leonidas was slain at Thermopylæ, Mardonius and Xerxes cut off his head, and suspended his body from a cross. Do the same with respect to Mardonius, and you will deserve the applause of Sparta and of Greece, and avenge the cause of your uncle Leonidas. ”

“ Leonidas perceived that, if a small number of resolute men would undertake to defend this passage, it would retard the march of the whole Persian army, and give the Grecians time to collect their troops; but who would undertake so desperate an enterprise, where there was scarcely any possibility of escaping alive? For this reason, Leonidas determined to undertake the expedition himself, with such of the Spartans as would voluntarily attend him, and to sacrifice his own life for the preservation of his country. ”

“ Leonidas also had his special chair in one corner of the dining room, which he mounted at the sounding of the gong and remained in until his own plate was carried out to his kennel. The baby and Leonidas were most astonishingly good pals. He would tolerate liberties at her hands that no one else dared venture upon. The worst ordeal of the day for Leonidas was to take tea with the dolls. With a napkin tied under his chin, he was compelled to occupy a place at the dolls' tea-table and sit there immovable until the ceremony was over. No Christian martyr ever had a more expressive countenance ”

“ These men, surprised, and overwhelmed with a shower of arrows, fled up the mountain-side, and left the way open to the Persians, who pursued their course down the mountain, and at mid-day reached the rear of the pass of Thermopylæ.
Leonidas had heard of their coming. Scouts had brought him word. The defence of the pass was at an end. They must fly or be crushed. A council was hastily called, and it was decided to retreat. But this decision was not joined in by Leonidas and his gallant three hundred. The honor of Sparta would not permit her king to yield a pass which he had been sent to defend. ”

“ The laws of the Spartans forbade them to fly from any enemy, however numerous, and Leonidas did not venture to disobey them. Perhaps his resolution was strengthened by an oracle of that Delphi so peculiarly venerated by the Dorian race, and which foretold either the fall of Sparta, or the sacrifice of a Spartan king of the blood of Hercules. To men whose whole happiness was renown, life had no temptation equal to such a death! ”

“ Leonidas replied promptly, "to join the army of Memnon."
"By the horn of Dionysus, you came in time!" the captain cried, wiping his sword. "But I have been long away from home. Is it the fashion there now to fight with stakes for weapons?"
He looked at Chares, whose mighty onslaught had aroused the admiration of the soldiers.
"It is the fashion there, as it always has been, to fight with whatever comes to hand when Greeks are in danger," Chares said with dignity. "But do you suppose, now, that there is a skin of wine in that house?" ”

“ As the two friends proceeded they now began to meet other bands of fugitives straggling along the road. Most of them fled silently, often looking back over their shoulders as if in dread of pursuit.
"Cowards!" said Leonidas, scornfully.
"Life is sweet to all of us," Clearchus remonstrated, thinking of Artemisia.
"To such as these it should be bitter!" the Spartan replied.
They were rounding a turn in the road as he spoke, and before the words were well out of his mouth they found themselves entangled in a rabble of horsemen, who were retreating before a fierce attack. ”

“ To one who said that the multitude of the Persian arrows would darken the sun, he answered, “Is it not an advantage for us to fight in the shade?” [35]
The body of Leonidas was beheaded and exposed on a cross by order of Xerxes: an act at variance with the usual generosity of the Persians, who were noted for the respect which they paid to bravery in an enemy. The Greeks were buried where they had fallen, the Spartans and Thespians apart from the rest, and a sepulchral barrow heaped over their remains, upon which the statue of a lion was subsequently placed in honour of Leonidas. ”

“ To refresh himself in his long climb under the rays of the sun pouring down upon him from a cloudless sky, Leonidas may help himself so liberally as to get excited and break out into song and story, imperilling the rider’s life, perhaps, by going off the main track and having to turn where the horse has difficulty in keeping its hind feet from slipping down the side of a precipice ”

“ Chelonis, then, pointing to her mourning habit and her dishevelled hair thus addressed Leonidas. ‘It was not my dear father compassion for Cleombrotos which put me in this habit and gave me this look of misery. My sorrows took their date with your misfortune and your banishment, and have ever since remained my familiar companions. Now you have conquered your enemies and are again king of Sparta should I still retain these ensigns of affliction or assume festival and royal ornaments, while the husband of my youth whom you yourself bestowed upon me falls a victim to your vengeance? ”

“ The troops sent for this purpose were from different cities, and amounted to about 4,000, who were to keep the pass against two millions. The leader of them was Leonidas, who had newly become one of the two kings of Sparta, the city that above all in Greece trained its sons to be hardy soldiers, dreading death infinitely less than shame. Leonidas had already made up his mind that the expedition would probably be his death, perhaps because a prophecy had been given at the Temple of Delphi that Sparta should be saved by the death of one of her kings of the race of Hercules. ”

“ Having thus said Xerxes passed in review the bodies of the dead; and as for Leonidas, hearing that he had been the king and commander of the Lacedemonians he bade them cut off his head and crucify him. And it has been made plain to me by many proofs besides, but by none more strongly than by this, that king Xerxes was enraged with Leonidas while alive more than with any other man on earth; for otherwise he would never have done this outrage to his corpse; since of all the men whom I know, the Persians are accustomed most to honour those who are good men in war. ”

“ Now if Leonidas had given way to impulse and retired, like Demaratus the son of Ariston, either to the king of Macedonia or to the Egyptian king, he would have profited nothing even by the Spartans changing their minds. But as it was, when the citizens sentenced him to exile, he went to Arcadia, whence not many years later he was recalled by the Lacedemonians, who made him king again.
3.6.9 Now how Cleomenes the son of Leonidas performed daring feats of valor, and how after him the Spartans ceased to be ruled by kings, I have already shown in my account of Aratus of Sicyon. ”

“ They followed him into the tent, which contained nothing save his weapons and a couch spread upon the ground.
"Clearchus and Chares back again!" the young king cried in a tone of satisfaction. "You have much to tell me; but first I must hear what Leonidas brings."
"Darius and his army have passed the Amanic Gates and are now at Issus," Leonidas said briefly.
The smile left Alexander's lips.
"How many men has he?" he asked.
"Five hundred thousand, of whom thirty thousand are mercenaries of Greek blood," Leonidas answered.
"They are in our rear," Alexander said, half to himself. ”

“ However, the wheel of fortune again turns, and Leonidas is restored to power. Agis and Cleombrotus flee for their lives, and become suppliants--the one at the temple of the Brazen House, the other at the temple of Poseidon. Leonidas, being more incensed against his son-in-law, leaves Agis for the time and goes with his soldiers to Cleombrotus's sanctuary to reproach him for having conspired with his enemies, usurped his throne, and driven him from his country. Chilonis, perceiving the great danger threatening her husband, leaves her father and seeks to aid and comfort the fugitive. ”