Leotychidas II

Eurypontid king of Sparta (reigned c. 491–476, exiled for bribery after the Thessalian campaign and dying in exile at Tegea c. 469), the junior king-house while Leonidas and then Pausanias held the Agiad command on land. He led the allied fleet across the Aegean in summer 479, responding to appeals from the Samians and other Ionians to free them from Persian rule. The fleet found the Persian navy beached under the headland of Mycale opposite Samos; Leotychidas led the landing and the battle on the strand, assisted by the defection of the Ionian contingent in the Persian army. The victory at Mycale, coinciding with Plataea on the same afternoon, ended the invasion and reopened the Ionian coast to Greek freedom.

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