A famous Spartan general, the grandson of Leonidas, who, as commander-in-chief of the Greeks, overthrew the Persian army under Mardonius at Plataea in 479, but who, elated by this and other successes, aimed at the sovereignty of Greece by alliance with Xerxes, and being discovered, took refuge in a temple at Athens, where he was blockaded and starved to death in 477 B.C., his mother throwing the first stone of the pile that was cast up to bar his exit.