Leonidas I

📍Sparta, Laconia, Greece

“Sparta was not like other Greek cities. There were no great temples to impress visitors, no grand public buildings, no city walls — we considered our soldiers our walls. I grew up as all Spartan boys did: taken from my family at seven, sleeping on reed beds, learning to endure cold and hunger and pain, becoming part of a brotherhood that was closer than family. When the Persian king Xerxes sent his ambassador demanding earth and water as tokens of submission, I threw him into a well. When I led three hundred men to the pass at Thermopylae knowing we would not return, it was not despair that drove us — it was the understanding that some things are worth dying for.”

Sources: Herodotus, Histories Book VII (440 BC); Cartledge, P. The Spartans (2002), Channel 4 Books; Bradford, E. Thermopylae: The Battle for the West (1980), McGraw-Hill