Leonidas I
Held Thermopylae with 300 after dismissing his allies — discipline so deep his men groomed for battle.
The episode
Before the battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, Herodotus reports, Xerxes sent a horseman to spy on the small Greek force blocking the pass. The scout found the Spartans posted outside their wall — some practising athletic exercises, others calmly combing their long hair. The baffled king was told this was Spartan custom when they meant to risk their lives: training and grooming as battle ritual. When the position was betrayed and encircled, Leonidas dismissed most of the allied troops so they would not perish, judging it unseemly for Spartans to abandon a post they had been sent to guard. He stayed with his three hundred, and the stand at the pass became the West's defining image of discipline against odds.
The move — copy this today
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