Leonidas I

Sourced

• 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" in the Moralia
  • Variant translation: Marry a good man, and have good children.

• Molon Labe!
  • Come and get them!
  • 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 Apophthegmata Laconica, 225c.11 of the Moralia.

Unsourced

• If you knew what is good in life, you would abstain from wishing for foreign things. For me it is better to die for Greece than to be monarch over my compatriots.
  • In response to Xerxes' offer of Kingship over all Greece in return for a Spartan surrender at Thermoyplae.

• Upon being told that the persians were so numerous that their campfires shone like stars in the night. Leonidas replied:
  • "Good, for when i was a young boy, i had always dreamed of reaching the stars with my spear!"

• Upon being told that the persians arrows were so thick that they would"blot out the sun", he said
  • Then our battle shall be in the shade!"

Misattributed

• Ὦ ξεῖν', ἀγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ὅτι τῇδε
  κείμεθα, τοῖς κείνων ῥήμασι πειθόμενοι.
• Ō xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti tēide
  keimetha tois keinōn rhēmasi peithomenoi.
  • 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; some translations follow:
  • Go, stranger, and to Lacedaemon tell
    That here, obeying her behests, we fell.
    • As translated by George Rawlinson
  • Go tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
    That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
    • As translated by William Lisle Bowles
  • Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by,
    that here obedient to their laws we lie.
    • As translated by Steven Pressfield.
  • Unsourced variants:
    • Go, stranger, and to Sparta tell,
      That faithful to her laws we fell.
    • Tell Sparta, stranger passing by,
      That faithful to her laws we lie.
  • For a discussion of the epigram and more of its numerous translations, see the Wikipedia article: Battle of Thermoplyae.

• "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.""