Leontiades (Thermopylae)

Leontiades was the commander of the 400-man Theban contingent of the Greek army at the Battle of Thermopylae.^[1] Little was recorded about his life before or after the battle, but according to Herodotus he was the son of Eurymachus, and also the father of another Eurymachus who would play a leading role at the much later Siege of Plataea.^[2]

The Boeotian-Greek city of Thebes had paid tokens of submission to a herald of the Persian King Xerxes while his army was still crossing through Macedon toward Greece, as had most of the other Boeotians, the Thessalians, and numerous other northern Greek tribes.^[3] The Spartan king Leonidas, therefore wary of Theban loyalty, pressed for Thebes to send troops to join him to test whether they would honor or refuse the Greek alliance against the Persians. Thebes responded by sending 400 hoplites, led by Leontiades, to join the Greek coalition at the mountain pass of Thermopylae.^[4]

For the first two days of battle, Leontiades’s contingent fought in rotation with the other Greeks against the Persians.^[5] When the Persians learned on the second night of a route by which they could encircle the Greek position, and Leonidas responded by dismissing most of the Greek army from the pass, Leontiades's Thebans were the only group which Leonidas compelled to remain there with his Spartans (although the Thespians led by Demophilus stayed as well, refusing the order to withdraw).^[6] On the third day, the Thebans initially fought alongside the Spartans and Thespians. But when the Persian encirclement of the pass was completed and the Spartans and Thespians retreated to the position of their final stand, Leontiades and the Thebans took the opportunity to split off and rush forward to surrender.

Some of the Thebans were slain as they approached the Persians, but they were able to make the case that their loyalty had always been to Persia; that they had been among the first Greeks to offer Xerxes tokens of submission, had only come to Thermopylae under duress from the Greek allies, and were guiltless of any harm done to Xerxes. The Thessalians in Xerxes's army bore witness that the Thebans spoke the truth, and the Thebans' lives were spared. At the order of Xerxes, Leontiades and each of his surviving men were then branded with the king's marks.^[7]

See also

• Greco-Persian Wars
• Second Persian invasion of Greece
• Megistias the Seer
• Aristodemus of Sparta
• Eurytus of Sparta
• Leontiades

References

1. Herodotus, The Histories, 7.202: "The Greeks that awaited the Persian in that place were these… from Boeotia, seven hundred Thespians and four hundred Thebans."
2. Herodotus, The Histories, 7.233: "This is he whose son Eurymachus long afterwards put himself at the head of four hundred Thebans and seized the citadel of Plataeae, but was slain by the Plataeans."
3. Herodotus, The Histories, 7.131-132: "Xerxes delayed for many days in the parts of Pieria; for a third part of his army was clearing a road over the Macedonian mountains, that all the army might pass by that way to the Perrhaebian country; and now returned the heralds who had been sent to Hellas to demand earth, some empty-handed, some bearing earth and water. Among those who paid that tribute were the Thessalians, Dolopes, Enienes, Perrhaebians, Locrians, Magnesians, Melians, Achaeans of Phthia, Thebans, and all the Boeotians except the men of Thespiae and Plataea."
4. Herodotus, The Histories, 7.202: "[Leonidas] now came to Thermopylae, with a picked force of the customary three hundred, and those that had sons; and he brought with him too those Thebans whom I counted among the number, whose general was Leontiades son of Eurymachus. Leonidas was at pains to bring these Thebans more than any other Greeks, because they were constantly charged with favouring the Persian part; therefore it was that he summoned them to the war, because he desired to know whether they would send their men with him or plainly refuse the Greek alliance. They sent the men; but they had other ends in view."
5. Herodotus, The Histories, 7.212: "But the Greeks stood arrayed by battalions and nations, and each of these fought in its turn, save the Phocians, who were posted on the mountains to guard the path."
6. Herodotus, The Histories, 7.222: "So those of the allies who were bidden to go went their ways in obedience to Leonidas, and the Thespians and Thebans alone stayed by the Lacedaemonians; the Thebes indeed against their will and desire, and kept there by Leonidas as hostages; but the Thespians remained with great goodwill. They refused to depart and leave Leonidas and his comrades, but remained there and died with him. Their general was Demophilus son of Diadromes."
7. Herodotus, The Histories, 7.233: "As for the Thebans, whose general was Leontiades, they were for a while with the Greeks and constrained by necessity to fight against the king's army; but as soon as they saw the Persians gaining the upper hand, then, when the Greeks with Leonidas were pressing towards the hillock, the Thebans separated from them and drew nigh to the foreigners, holding out their hands and crying that they were the Persians' men and had been among the first to give earth and water to the king; it was under constraint (they said) that they had come to Thermopylae, and they were guiltless of the harm done to the king; which was the truest word ever spoken; so that by this plea they saved their lives, the Thessalians being there to bear witness to what they said. Howbeit they were not wholly fortunate; for when the foreigners caught them coming, they even slew some of them as they drew near; the most of them were branded by Xerxes' command with the king's marks, from their general Leontiades downwards."