Leonidas of Sparta: A Boy of the Agoge
The death of Leonidas is legendary. His last days have inspired great works of art and popular enthusiasm. The stand of "the 300" at Thermopylae has been harnessed to a hundred modern causes pitting East against West, and Leonidas with his 300 Spartans have come to symbolize what is good and noble in war: self-sacrifice for the sake of one's country and family. But who was Leonidas? And what was he before he became the incarnation of Freedom fighting Tyranny?