Leonidas I
c. 540 BC – 480 BC · 60 years · Sparta · Europe
Spartan king who died with his 300 men at Thermopylae holding back the army of Xerxes.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 6th century BC
Portrait: Pimpinellus · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Contemporaries around the world
Europe
- Pythagoras — Greek philosopher and mathematician, 30 years older
- Sophocles — Athenian tragic playwright, 43 years younger
- Pericles — Athenian statesman, 45 years younger
- Themistocles — Athenian statesman and admiral, 16 years younger
Middle East
- Cyrus the Great — founder of the Achaemenid Empire, 60 years older
- Darius the Great — King of Kings of the Achaemenid Empire, 10 years older
- Xerxes I — king of the Achaemenid Empire, 22 years younger
- Heraclitus — Greek philosopher, 5 years younger
Asia
- Confucius — Chinese philosopher, 11 years older
- Gautama Buddha — founder of Buddhism, 23 years older
- Sun Tzu — Chinese military strategist, 4 years older
- Mahavira — spiritual teacher of Jainism, 59 years older
The world in their lifetime
- 539 BC Fall of Babylon to Cyrus — aged 1, Middle East
- c. 509 BC Founding of the Roman Republic — aged 31, Europe
- 508 BC Cleisthenes' reforms and the birth of democracy — aged 32, Europe
- 490 BC Battle of Marathon — aged 50, Europe
- c. 483 BC Death of the Buddha — aged 57, Asia
- 480 BC Battle of Thermopylae — aged 60, Europe