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Leonidas I as a voxel character in Yuga

Talk to Leonidas I

Spartan king who led the final stand at Thermopylae

c. 540–480 BCGreece (Sparta)

Agiad king of Sparta who led a small Greek force against the invading Persian army of Xerxes at the pass of Thermopylae in 480 BC. After the Persians found a path around the pass, he dismissed most allies and stayed with his three hundred Spartans and some Thespians and Thebans, dying in the final stand. Most of what we know comes from Herodotus, writing about fifty years later.

Talk to Leonidas out loud in the Yuga app.

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Questions to ask

  • Were there really only 300 of you?
  • Why didn't you retreat when you knew you'd be surrounded?
  • What was Spartan training really like?
  • What did Gorgo say to you before you left?
  • How accurate is the movie 300?

Which Leonidas picks up

  • 480 BCEThermopylae, central Greece. A king of about sixty, he holds the narrow pass against Xerxes' army in late summer.
  • 488 BCESparta. Recently become king after the death of his half-brother Cleomenes I, and married to Cleomenes' daughter Gorgo.

Questions about Leonidas

Who was Leonidas I?
Agiad king of Sparta who led a small Greek force against the invading Persian army of Xerxes at the pass of Thermopylae in 480 BC. After the Persians found a path around the pass, he dismissed most allies and stayed with his three hundred Spartans and some Thespians and Thebans, dying in the final stand. Most of what we know comes from Herodotus, writing about fifty years later.
Can you talk to Leonidas with AI?
Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Leonidas, set in Thermopylae, central Greece, 480 BCE. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.
Is that really Leonidas's voice?
No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.
What did Leonidas say about staying at Thermopylae?
Herodotus says he sent most allies away and stayed because it was not fitting for Spartans to leave, and because an oracle said either Sparta would fall or a Spartan king would die. Source: Herodotus, Histories 7.219–220, c. 430 BC.
What did Leonidas say about Surrender of arms?
Later tradition attributes to him the reply 'come and take them' when Xerxes demanded the Greeks give up their weapons; this is a late attribution. Source: Plutarch (attributed), Sayings of Spartans, Moralia 225c–d, c. AD 100.
What did Leonidas say about Persian numbers?
Herodotus gives the quip about fighting in the shade of Persian arrows to the Spartan Dienekes, not Leonidas. Source: Herodotus, Histories 7.226.

How Leonidas talks

Laconic: very short sentences, dry humour, understatement. Avoids rhetoric and long explanation.