Biography:

Deimedes the Spartan, of the tribe of Pamphyloi, was born in Amyclae in 500bc in the month of Carneios at the start of the festival of Carneia.

His father was Akmatides, born in 530b, younger brother of Damaratos born in 531bc.

Both were sons of Euagoras, the great Olympic champion & winner of Tethrippon at Olympia in 548, 544 & 540bc and awarded Aristeia after battle of Sepia in 494bc, in which both his sons also fought.

Deimedes entered Agoge in 493bc & then the Krypteia in 481bc before being awarded his klaroi in September 480 at the age 20, as Leonidas was leading his 300 to Thermopylae.

Both his father Akmatides, winner of the Pentathlon at Olympia in 500bc & uncle Damaratos, winner of Tethrippon at Olympia in 504bc, were killed at the battle of Thermopylae, Damaratos whilst fighting to recover the body of Leonidas, Akmatides during the final stand.

Deimedes became a member of Amompharetus's mess in 480, as his father had been beforehand, and was promoted to Demi-Phylarch in the spring of 479 before the battle of Plataea.

Promoted to Phylarch after Plataea, for fighting with distinction with Amompharetus's contingent holding the ridge whilst the Greek army reformed. Deimedes pulled the Mede General Mardonius from his horse & killed several of his bodyguard while his companion Aeimnestus killed Mardonius with a rock.

Deimedes continued to serve in several campaigns and was awarded the prize of Aristeia and promoted to Enomotarch after the battle of Tegea in 473bc.

He was further promoted to Pentekoster after the battle of Dipaea in 471bc and entered the Apella in 470.

Deimedes married the patrouchoi Alethea, youngest daughter of Amompharetus in 470 adding her klaroi to his. After the wedding Alethea worshipped Eileithyia and their son Akesiloas was born in 469bc.

Alethea herself died during the great earthquake of 465bc whilst Deimedes was on a diplomatic & military mission to the Spartan colony of Taras in Magna Graecia, aiding them with their war against the Lapyges, following Taras great defeat by the Lapyges in 466bc

Returning to Sparta & devoting the next three years to rebuilding his klaroi, seeing to the raising of his son and putting down the helot revolt in Messenia, Deimedes finally used the wealth from his two klaroi and bought horses in 462 when Akesiloas entered the agoge. Deimedes began rearing & training horses for the Tethrippon leading to Akesiloas Olympic victories in this event in 448 & 444bc.

Deimedes served Sparta faithfully both at home and abroad, seeing Akesiloas grow to manhood, marry and have a son of his own. Deimedes entered the Gerousia in 439bc and becomes an Ephor in 432bc.

Regarded as a moderate, Deimedes was a member of the diplomatic mission to Athens in late 432bc, where he met the historian Thucydides, when relations between Sparta & Athens were deteriorating and war seemed probable,

Deimedes did not live to see Sparta victorious in the subsequent Athenian War (known to history by Thucydides recording it as the Peloponnesian war).He died peacefully at home in the summer of 413bc, just short of his 87th birthday, after returning victorious from Syracuse