The outnumbered Greek forces held off the Persians for three days, but it was Leonidas’ heroic last stand with his Hippeis of 300 Spartans on the last day that allowed for the escape of the remainder of the Greek force. An able and respected commander, Leonidas was chosen to head up the defense of the pass at Thermopylae, the bulwark that would decide whether or not the armies of Xerxes could enter Boeotia, and then the rest of the Greek mainland. Leonidas I was one of two Kings of Sparta during the middle phase of the Persian War. Though Sparta would decline and fade after the rise of Macedon and Rome, the idea of Sparta has lived on into modernity in a romanticised form.
Sparta built this reputation in the Hellenistic mediterranean through the development of a rigid communal military culture, a nearly single-minded focus on preparing the young men of the state for service as soldiers. A proud warrior society, the original army with a state, Sparta has become almost mythologized over the millennia as the exemplar of a laconic martial discipline. The idea of Sparta is one of the most evocative in the Western consciousness.
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