Come and take it

Detail of a mural in the museum at Gonzales, Texas, featuring a conjectured Come and Take It flag


"Come and take it" is a long-standing expression of defiance first recorded in the ancient Greek form molon labe "come and take [them]", a laconic reply supposedly given by the Spartan King Leonidas I in response to the Persian King Xerxes I's demand for the Spartans to surrender their weapons on the eve of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC.[1] It was later used in 1778 at Fort Morris during the American Revolution, and also in 1835 at the Battle of Gonzales during the Texas Revolution.

  1. ^ Plutarch. 225D, "Sayings of Spartans", Leonidas, Son of Anasandridas, saying 11 (in Ancient Greek) – via Perseus Project.