Molon labe

Molon Labe! (Ancient: mo-lone lah-beh); (Modern:mo-lone lah-veh) (Greek: ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ or μολὼν λαβέ) means "Come and take them!"

Grammar

The first word, μολὼν, is the aorist active participle (masculine, nominative, singular) of the Greek verb βλώσκω, meaning "having come." Λαβέ is the aorist active imperative (second person singular) of the verb λαμβάνω, translated "[you] take [them]."

History

Μολὼν λαβέ was the response of King Leonidas I of Sparta to Xerxes I of Persia at the onset of the Battle of Thermopylae. Xerxes, with his 600,000 men, offered to spare the lives of Leonidas and his few hundred defenders if they would only lay down their weapons. Instead, the Spartans held Thermopylae for days and, while they died to the last man, they inflicted serious damage on the Persian army, delaying it and essentially preventing the conquest of the Greek Peninsula.

The source for this quotation is Plutarch, Apophthegmata Laconica, 225c.11. This work may or may not be by Plutarch himself, but it is included among the Moralia, a collection of works attributed to him but outside the collection of his most famous works, the Parallel Lives.

Modern usage

In modern usage, it is often heard from pro-gun activists as a proclamation of belief in the natural right to keep and bear arms (as affirmed by the 2nd Amendment of the United States Constitution) and as a challenge to those supporting stricter gun control laws (or what they fear would be a government seizure of firearms). It began to appear on such forums as www.thefiringline.com and on pro-RKBA web sites in the late 1990's and early 2000's. The idea for the phrase in its modern usage may have come from the novel "Gates of Fire" by Steven Pressfield. The novel was published in 1998, shortly before the first appearances of the phrase on the web in the signature line of a TFL user.

Molon Labe! is the title of a 1997 novel by Boston T. Party (a.k.a. Kenneth W. Royce) author of nine books on survivalism, government, and the 2nd Amendment. The novel depicts the United States of the year 2020, in which the Federal Government has ordered the states to relinquish all firearms. The state of Wyoming refuses and responds "Molon Labe," or "Come and take them."

See also

• "Come and take it" - slogan from the Texas Revolution Battle of Gonzales.
• Molon Labe! - Novel by Kenneth W. Royce about a migration of libertarians to Wyoming.