Silver coin 2 Oz Legendary Warriors - Leonidas I

This silver coin featuring the legendary Spartan king Leonidas is a unique work of art and a collector's rarity.

In the 5th century BC, dark clouds gathered over Greece. The Persian Empire decided that the unimaginable territory stretching from the Indus River to the Aegean Sea was not enough, and decided to subjugate the Balkan Peninsula as well. The Persian king Xerxes assembled an army of hundreds of thousands and marched westward. The free city-states of Greece could not agree on how to face this threat, but one man was clear. Spartan King Leonidas knew that the time for battle had come. He set out to meet the enemy and, alongside three hundred loyal warriors, confronted him in a narrow pass between the mountains and the sea. Here, at Thermopylae, numbers ceased to be an advantage, and one Spartan was worth a thousand Persians. For three days, Leonidas faced overwhelming odds and for three days he resisted – calm, determined, honorable, and laconic. When Xerxes offered to spare his men if they laid down their arms, he replied, "Come and take them!" When the Persians then fired so many arrows that they blocked out the sun, one of the Spartans said: "At least we will fight in the shade." No wonder Xerxes, who considered himself the master of the world, was furious... In the end, betrayal helped him. One of the inhabitants of Thermopylae betrayed the Greeks and showed the Persians a secret mountain path, which they used to attack the Spartans from behind. Even when surrounded, Leonidas did not retreat. He fell alongside his men and went down in history as a symbol of courage and unbreakable will.

The reverse side of the coin depicts the fierce Leonidas leaving Sparta alongside his loyal comrades-in-arms. Their invincibility is emphasized by the rich gilding of the relief. The obverse side is dedicated to an inexhaustible array of weapons, revealing that the coin is part of a series dedicated to legendary warriors. As the coin is issued with the license of a foreign issuer, the island of Niue, its obverse side also bears the necessary attributes – the national emblem, the nominal value of FIVE DOLLARS (NZD) and the year of issue 2025.

The issue limit of the coin minted by T&S Coin is only 500 pieces.