Asked why it was dishonorable to return without a shield and not without a helmet, the Spartan king, Demaratos (510 - 491) is said to have replied: "Because the latter they put on for their own ...

Little did Leonidas know that over 2,500 years later, "Molon Lave" would be used as a global marketing tool -from weapons to ...

Under instructions from the Spartan king, Cleomenes, the first task of the new government was to banish Cleisthenes' most powerful allies. Altogether over 700 households were brutally cast out of ...

Each year the ephors, or magistrates, chose the 300 best hoplites in Sparta to become the hippeis—elite soldiers who formed the king’s private guard. Known as a hoplon—from which is derived ...

The Battle of Salamis was one of the decisive battles of world history, in which the small city-states of ancient Greece ...

The heroic Spartan king Leonidas, armed with nothing but leather underwear and a cape, leads a ragtag bunch of 13 Spartan misfit warriors to defend their homeland against thousands of invading ...