Come and take them.

Molon labe. (Come and take them.)

Leonidas I

Military Strategists

Leonidas I

The Spartan king who led 300 warriors in a suicidal last stand at Thermopylae (480 BCE), buying Greece the time it needed to organize against the Persian invasion. Leonidas transformed a tactical defeat into a strategic victory and a moral monument — proving that the manner of fighting matters as much as the outcome.

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Source: プルタルコス「スパルタ人の格言集」Verified

Leonidas I's Other Quotes

Then we shall fight in the shade.

Go, stranger, and tell the Lacedaemonians that here we lie, obedient to their commands.

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