Leonidas

Leonidas. The hero king of Sparta - not just a regular king, but a hero king. The name itself means "son of the lion." For comparison, my name means "light;dark" as if even my name itself is plagued by indecision. He is even said to be a descendant of Heracles himself. To say the least, Leonidas was born with some mighty big sandals to fill. 

Despite being born into a royal family, Leonidas was not set to take the throne from birth. Having an older brother, Cleomenes, means that he was second in line. In addition to missing out on the crown, he also had to have a freaking terrible childhood, especially considering what a lot of ancient history royalty would receive. All male Spartans, except for the first born males of royalty (curse you, lucky Cleomenes!) were sent to the agoge. This was basically boot camp done Spartan style... so, basically just much worse than boot camp. Also, it's for kids. 

The purpose of the agoge was education and training for all forms of Greek life. This meant stealth, loyalty, military training, hunting, dancing (I bet Leo' was a wonderful dancer), singing (Sweet home Apollonia...) and social preparation (which I can only assume is some form of beating). If this doesn't sound so bad, consider the fact that the military training had a lot to do with learning pain tolerance - and there aren't a lot of ways to learn pain tolerance. Oh, and the stealth? They would starve the kids so they would learn how to steal, thus learning stealth. The penalties for stealing were also quite harsh, so they best learn quick. When they completed the schooling with what I assume is a diploma made from an enemy warrior's scalp, they were named the "walls of Sparta". Add being a wall to Leonidas' impressive list of titles. 

Leonidas taking "wall of Sparta" too
literally, becoming stone.

Sometime while he's stealing apples and bread ninja style and singing about it later, Leonidas' brother became king upon the death of his father. Unfortunately for the new king Cleomenes, he kinda lost his mind and was exiled out of the city. Now it was time for our 300 action star to take the throne. As a side note, Leonidas also married Cleomenes daughter, Gorgo. I assume that despite the fact that it's incest, Leonidas just couldn't resist such a beautiful and womanly name such as that (it falls one letter short of gorgon, a hideous mythological creature, and one letter shy of gorgos, which means dreadful. Gorgo must have been a hideous baby).

Being a king wasn't going to be an easy job. Persia was at their doorstep, standing tall with one of the largest armies on record, ready to attack a much smaller Greece. Regardless, Leonidas was poised for war. However, he wasn't simply allowed to go to war as he so pleased, and he needed to visit an Oracle in order to be blessed by the gods before he could leave to fight; this is where they told him that one incredibly powerful bastion of manhood was about to fall - Leondias or Sparta. Naturally, he left to go fight. Leonidas was chosen to lead the combined Greek forces and meet Persia in a narrow pass that was the only way to the heartland. 

Soon the battle of Thermopyle was underway. Leonidas took a mere three hundred men to fight the vast armies of Persia, along with a number of men from Athens and other allied Greek city states of whom he met along the way. He eventually roused a number of them to battle, likely about 7,500. However, that was still a paltry number considering who was to meet on the field; Xerxes, the Persian leader. Oh, and he also had somewhere between 100,000 to 200,000 men with him. I suppose they're pretty important to mention.

The wikipedia description for this picture
claimed him to be "heroically nude".  Not even
once have I been called that.

On the first day of battle 2,500 Greeks died but at the cost of 20,000 Persian lives, two of which were Xerxes' brothers. The Immortals, the elite fighting squad of the Persian army (bear in mind the majority of the Persians were poorly equipped slaves) were deployed to break the ranks of the well trained, battle hardened Spartan force, but to no avail. The line was holding. It went down in history as one of the best examples of the benefits of using terrain to aid a battle, as well as proper training and equipment. It also went down in history as being the coolest last stand battle ever. The latter may be more opinion based.

In the end, Leonidas was killed due to the narrow pass that provided these advantages being made useless due to a secondary route that allowed the Persians to flank the Spartans. This was made known to the Persians by a Greek traitor named Ephialtes, a man whose name has gone down in history as a traitorous prick for centuries. Upon hearing the Persians were going to rout them, Leonidas sent the majority of his men back to safety, but stayed to ensure their safety in their retreat. What a baller. While he may have been defeated, allowing the Persian armies to roll through and take over Athens, other Greeks took up the charge and pushed Xerxes back after he removed much of his army after fearing being trapped in Greek lands. 

Leonidas, contrary to popular modern depictions, did not defeat his enemies in slow motion.

Famous Historical Figures Say the Darndest Things!

1. "Come and take!" A statue has since been put up in Greece with the words "Come and Take" engraved on it. Supposedly that is what Leonidas yelled when the Persians asked them to lay down their weapons. 300 may have exaggerated, but a lot of the over-the-top one-liners in that movie were recorded words from the son of a lion himself and the army at his side.
2. "Have a good breakfast, men, for we dine in Hades!" Leonidas said this on the morning of what would be their death at the hands of the Persians.