King Leonidas is today best remembered for his his role during the Battle of Thermopylae. Leonidas along with 300 Spartan citizen-warriors and an unknown number of auxiliaries died in the battle of 480 BC wherein they stalled the Persian advance into the Peloponnese. This would prove to be a crucial incident in the Persian Wars as the the Spartan defeat would inspire Pan-Hellenic ideals among the Greeks, leading to their victory over the Achaemenid Empire which subsequently set the stage for Sparta to become a dominant military power in the Mediterranean .
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