LEONARDO DA VINCI 



3383 



LEOPOLD 



woolens, saddlery and gold and silver embroid- 

 ery. The Mexican Central Railway serves the 

 town. Population, 1910, 57,700. 



LEONARDO DA VINCI. See VINCI, LEO- 

 NARDO DA. 



LEONID AS, leon'idas, king of Sparta, suc- 

 cessor to his brother Cleomenes I in 491 B. c. 

 When the Persian monarch Xerxes approached 

 the Grecian states with an immense army 

 Leonidas opposed him at the narrow pass of 

 Thermopylae with a force of several thousand, 

 including 300 Spartans, 700 Thespians and 400 

 Thebans. For two days the heroic little band 

 resisted the attacks of the great Persian army, 

 showing the most wonderful courage. On the 

 third day of the conflict, through the treachery 

 of a Greek named Ephialtes, who betrayed to 

 the Persians a mountain path, Leonidas and his 

 little army were assailed from the rear, and be- 

 fore the sun went down not one remained of 

 the Spartans and their heroic Thespian and 

 Theban allies. The other allies had been al- 

 lowed to withdraw when the danger became 

 evident. See THERMOPYLAE. 



In later years pillars were set up to com- 

 memorate the bravery of the Greeks, who 

 were buried where they fell. One tablet bore 

 the words: 



"Four times a thousand men from Pelops' land 

 Three thousand times a thousand did with- 

 stand." 



Over the Spartans stood another column with 

 these words: 



"Go tell the Spartans, thou that passeth by, 

 That here, obedient to their laws, we lie." 



LEOPARD, lep'erd, a fierce animal, the 

 third in size of the cats of the Eastern Hemi- 

 sphere, being excelled in dimensions only by 

 the lion and the tiger. It is a graceful, alert 

 and cunning animal, and in size and color is 

 the most variable 

 of all the large 

 cats. The color is 

 usually of a light 

 tan, generously 



spotted, and the . jfaHwv^iw; wuwr 

 ta,I is 



The characteristic 

 marking of these THE LEOPARD 



animals, "the unchanging leopard spots," 

 makes their fur of great value. The black 

 leopard is of so dark a hue as to make the 

 spots almost imperceptible. Leopards feed on 

 such mammals as monkeys, sheep, goats and 

 and, like other great cats, they prey 



especially upon the latter. Seldom do they 

 attack human beings, but once having discov- 

 ered that people are easy victims, they may 

 be more danger- 

 ous than the tiger 

 or lion. These 

 great cats fre- 

 quent wooded dis- 

 tricts, and are 

 found throughout 

 India, Persia, 

 Ceylon, Arabia 

 and Africa. See 

 CHEETA. 



- LE'OPOLD,the 

 name of two ENRAGED! 



kings of Belgium. They were father and son, 

 but unlike in their conduct of the affairs of 

 their kingdom and in their personal lives. 



Leopold I [GEORGE CHRISTIAN FREDERIC] 

 (1790-1865), a king of Belgium, the son of 

 Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and uncle of 

 Queen Victoria of England, was born at 

 Laeken. He received an excellent education 

 and later took an active part in Russian mili- 

 tary affairs under the Emperor Alexander I. 

 In 1816 Leopold married Princess Charlotte, 

 daughter of King George IV of England; she 

 died the next year. The throne of Greece was 

 offered to him, but he refused it, and in 1831 

 he was elected king of the Belgians, who had 

 revolted against Holland's rule. A year later 

 he married Princess Louise, daughter of Louis 

 Philippe of France. A son, Leopold II, suc- 

 ceeded him (see below). His wise and mod- 

 erate rule laid the foundation for the later 

 prosperity of the Belgian kingdom. 



Leopold II [Louis PHILIPPE MARIE VICTOR] 

 (1835-1909), became king of Belgium in 1865. 

 He was the uncle of Albert I, who succeeded 

 him in 1909. He organized the African Inter- 

 national Association for the purpose of devel- 

 oping the natural resources of the Congo River 

 region, financed Stanley's famous explorations 

 in South Africa, and was given control of the 

 Congo Free State in 1885, when it was taken 

 over by Belgium. Affairs among the natives 

 engaged in rubber and ivory industries there 

 were conducted so disgracefully by him as to 

 call forth severest criticism from other nations 

 (see CONGO). Leopold was survived only by 

 daughters, and as women are not permitted 

 to wear the crown of Belgium, the nearest male 

 heir succeeded to the kingship. See ALBERT I. 



Consult MacDonnell's King Leopold II; Rappo- 

 porf s Leopold, King of the Belgians. 



