person
Leonidas I
Leonidas
also: Leonidas, Leonidae, Leonidas the Lacedaemonian king, King Leonidas
King of Sparta who in 480 BC, faced with the choice of disgraceful flight or glorious death, made his stand with the famous Three Hundred against the Persians at Thermopylae and fell. Cicero holds up his death in De Finibus 2.62 and 2.97 as a paradigm of heroism the Epicureans cannot honor.
Reading notes
- On the Ends of Good and Evil §2.62 Leonidas, Epaminondas
Two Greek paragons of heroic death: Leonidas, the Spartan king who fell at Thermopylae, and Epaminondas, the Theban general killed in victory at Mantinea. Cicero says the Greeks can muster only a few such examples, whereas Rome offers many.