How did we know Spartan King Leonidas existed?
About 6 months ago, I was in Sparta Greece and at the museum in that city. This was part of a broader trip to Greece. There was a statue of King Leonidas which had been found in the “Sanctuary of Athena the Protector” ruins in Sparta, which I did not get to. This statue was old, about 400 BC. This statue was in good shape, it had been covered by rubble and soil. Also there are writings as mentioned by someone else already. After years of musing over misc. ancient writings I have personally come to the following conclusions. Even though they had a different belief system (different Gods and the like) the ancient historical writings, like our own historical writings, are largely an attempt at truth seeking and serious effort has been put to being accurate. They can make errors and even blunders but this isn’t usually the case. In fact, what is mostly wrong about our view of ancient times is not due to ancient writings but due to Hollywood movies. For example, Roman Emperor’s did not give
