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Leonidas I ( or ; Doric: (:leɔːnídas), '; Ionic Greek: Λεωνίδης, ''Leōnidēs''; died 480 BC),〔Robert Chambers, Book of Days〕 was a Greek warrior king of the Greek city-state of Sparta. He led the Spartan forces during the Second Persian War and is remembered for his death at the Battle of Thermopylae. Leonidas was the third son of Anaxandridas II of Sparta,〔Morris, 25〕 and thus belonged to the Agiad dynasty, who claimed descent from the hero Heracles. ==Life== According to Herodotus, Leonidas' mother was not only his father's wife but also his niece and had been barren for so long that the ephors, the five annually elected administrators of the Spartan constitution, tried to prevail upon King Anaxandridas to set her aside and take another wife. Anaxandridas refused, claiming his wife was blameless, whereupon the ephors agreed to allow him to take a second wife without setting aside his first. This second wife, a descendent of Chilon of Sparta (one of the Seven Sages of Greece), promptly bore a son, Cleomenes. However, one year after Cleomenes' birth, Anaxandridas' first wife also gave birth to a son, Dorieus. Leonidas was the second son of Anaxandridas' first wife, and either the elder brother or twin of Cleombrotus.〔Herodotus, (5.39–41 ); Jones, p. 48.〕 Because Leonidas was not heir to the throne, he was not exempt from attending the ''agoge'', the public school education which the sons of all Spartans had to complete in order to qualify for citizenship.〔For more information on the agoge see: Nigel M. Kennell, ''The Gymnasium of Virtue'', Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1995.〕 Leonidas was thus one of the few Spartan kings to have ever undergone the notoriously harsh training of Spartan youth. Anaxandridas died in 520 BC,〔Morris, 35〕 and Cleomenes succeeded to the throne sometime between then and 516 BC.〔W. G. Forrest, ''A History of Sparta 950–192 B.C., New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 1968, p. 85.〕 Dorieus was so outraged that the Spartans had preferred his half-brother over himself that he found it impossible to remain in Sparta. He made one unsuccessful attempt to set up a colony in Africa and, when this failed, sought his fortune in Sicily, where after initial successes he was killed.〔Herodotus, (5.42–48 )〕 Leonidas' relationship with his bitterly antagonistic elder brothers is unknown, but he married Cleomenes' daughter, Gorgo, sometime before coming to the throne in 490 BC.〔Paul Cartledge, ''The Spartans: The World of the Warrior-Heroes of Ancient Greece'', New York, Vintage Books, 2002, p. 126.〕 Leonidas was clearly heir to the Agiad throne and a full citizen (''homoios'') at the time of the Battle of Sepeia against Argos (c. 494 BC). Likewise, he was a full citizen when the Persians sought submission from Sparta and met with vehement rejection in or around 492/491 BC. His elder brother the king had already been deposed on grounds of purported insanity, and had fled into exile when Athens sought assistance against the First Persian invasion of Greece, that ended at Marathon (490 BC). Plutarch has recorded the following: "When someone said to him: 'Except for being king you are not at all superior to us,' Leonidas son of Anaxandridas and brother of Cleomenes replied: 'But were I not better than you, I should not be king.'"〔Plutarch on Sparta, Sayings of Spartans, Leonidas son of Anaxandridas, #1〕 As the product of the ''agoge'', Leonidas is unlikely to have been referring to his royal blood alone but rather suggesting that he had, like his brother Dorieus, proven superior capability in the competitive environment of Spartan training and society, and that he believed this made him qualified to rule. Leonidas was chosen to lead the combined Greek forces determined to resist the Second Persian invasion of Greece in 481 BC. This was not simply a tribute to Sparta's military prowess: The probability that the coalition wanted Leonidas personally for his capability as a military leader is underlined by the fact that just two years after his death, the coalition preferred Athenian leadership to the leadership of either Leotychidas or Leonidas' successor (as regent for his still under-aged son) Pausanias. The rejection of Leotychidas and Pausanias was not a reflection on Spartan arms. Sparta's military reputation had never stood in higher regard, nor was Sparta less powerful in 478 BC than it had been in 481 BC. This selection of Leonidas to lead the defense of Greece against Xerxes' invasion led to Leonidas' death in the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Leonidas I」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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