Leonidas I was a warrior king of the Greek city-state of Sparta, and the 17th of the Agiad line; a dynasty which claimed descent from the mythological demigod Heracles and Cadmus. He was the husband of Gorgo, the daughter of Cleomenes I of Sparta. Leonidas had a notable participation in the Second Persian War, where he led the allied Greek forces to a last stand at the Battle of Thermopylae while attempting to defend the pass from the invading Persian army; he entered myth as the leader of the 300 Spartans. Wikipedia
“Good. Then we'll have our battle in the shade.”
It is said that on the eve of battle, he was told by a native of Trachis that the Persian archers were so numerous that, when they fired their volleys the mass of arrows blocked out the sun. Dienekes, however, quite undaunted by this prospect, remarked with a laugh, "Good. Then we'll have our battle in the shade."
Herodotus, in Histories; the remarks of Dienekes have sometimes become attributed to Leonidas.
Misattributed
“Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell
That here, obeying her behests, we fell.”
The words of this famous epigram on the Greek monument at the site of the Battle of Thermopylae, written by Simonides of Ceos, have sometimes been presented as if they were literally words of Leonidas.
Misattributed
“Marry a good man, and bear good children.”
In response to his wife's question of what she should do if he died in battle, as he left for Thermopylae; as quoted in the "Sayings of the Spartan Women" http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Moralia/Sayings_of_Spartan_Women*.html in the Moralia <br class="br">Variant translation: Marry a good man, and have good children.
In response to a demand from Xerxes I of Persia that the Spartan army lay down their arms, at the Battle of Thermopylae, as recorded in Plutarch Apophthegmata Laconica, 225c.11 of the Moralia.
Variant: "Come and take them."
