The king who was never meant to be king

Leonidas was the third son of King Anaxandridas II. With two older brothers ahead of him, no one expected him to rule. Heirs to the throne were excused from the agoge, Sparta’s harsh state education. Leonidas was not.

From about the age of seven, Spartan boys lived in barracks. They were given one cloak a year, went barefoot, slept on reeds they gathered themselves and were deliberately underfed, encouraged to steal food and punished if caught. They learned to endure pain, to obey and to speak briefly.

Then his half-brother King Cleomenes died around 490 BC, and his other brother Dorieus had already been killed abroad. Leonidas, by now middle-aged, became king of a city whose discipline he had lived from the inside.

Ten years later, in 480 BC, he led 300 Spartans and several thousand allies to Thermopylae. According to Herodotus, he chose men who had living sons, so that no family line would end. He had not been born for the role. He had been trained for it.