By looking back at history we can learn a lot about how to behave in the future!
In 480 BC the king of Sparta Leonidas gave this answer to an overwhelming Persian army and their King, Xerxes, when he demanded the Spartan warriors to lay down their weapons. At the pass of Thermopylae he replied ‘MOLON LAVE’ (come and get them) with his 300 men and remained in history as a hero, a semi- God, a symbol of pride, will, courage, integrity and guard of values fighting death.
Leonidas and the 300 Spartans are the few who stood against the many, and they remain immortal for that.
They went to meet the enemy with the grandeur of their soul and the protection of their shield. Because that’s how their mothers raised them. To be fearless, to defy death, to protect their wives and children and most of all, to protect Sparta. When leaving for the battlefield the mothers gave their Spartan soldier sons their shields and said : I TAN I EPI TAS, meaning ‘Either (with) it (your shield), or on it (dead).
The shield, or ‘aspis’ was not just the equipment to fight the enemy it was mostly the way to protect themselves, to be together against death, each one watching over the the one in front and next to him. That’s what trust is about. Giving your life to the protection of the other while someone else protects you. Imagine that! There is NO such possibility of leaving you unprotected, no such possibility of abandoning you under no circumstances. What trust!!! I just can’t conceive it. The closest to such a feeling is the mother who can give her life for her children.
The soldiers were something greater than that love, too. The trust that you need to have to go and face death. We are together as one. Each one of us forms the whole. Shoulder to shoulder, with overlapping shields and spears they formed the phalanx, the ultimate weapon of war perfected by Spartans and thrust towards the enemy. When asked why Sparta had no walls to protect her they replied: “the borders of our frontiers are protected by the tips of our warriors s spears.”
Whoever lost in the battlefield a shield was severely punished afterwards and dishonored “because the arms and weapons were put on for their own protection, but the shield for the common good of the whole line.” as Demaratos, a Spartan King, explained.
Cowardice was never an option for Spartans who remained in history as a symbol of courage against overwhelming odds.
Keep them in mind when things break you down and never surrender.
Always keep Leonidas in your mind and answer back when someone demands your weapons, tell them MOLON LAVE and act as a hero. It’s not the outcome of the battle that inspires us after so many years but the inspirational example of free men who remained at the pass together as a fist among the many, facing courageously death while keeping their freedom, relying on themselves, their training, their fellows and above all - their soul!!!!