The Movie 300 and the Real Battle of Thermopylae
The Battle of Thermopylae. There may be some people who have never heard about it before, but it was the kind of battle that people made movies out of. The movie 300 was made in 2006 and is a retelling of this famous battle during the Persian Wars in 479 BC. This battle is of important significance due to the intensity of the battle itself and the outcome. This is the battle where 300 Spartans were lead into battle by King Leonidas of Sparta. When watching the movie and having background knowledge of the battle itself and the time period, a few inaccuracies came up. There were inaccuracies in the characters and historical figures portrayed within the film, the battle itself, and Spartan lifestyle. …show more content…
Outraged by the message, Leonidas throws the messenger into a giant pit to his death. This is one of the most popular scenes in this movie and it happens to be one-hundred percent historically inaccurate. The most accurate part of Leonidas’ character was the fact that 300 included his use of catchphrases. According to Frank Miller, the movie took the writings from Herodotus and Plutarch who were Greek historians. They documented quotes such as, “Come and get them” from the exchanging of words between Leonidas and Xerxes in reference to surrendering weapons.
In the movie 300, Xerxes is depicted as being bald and about nine-feet tall. In real life, this is obviously not a reasonable feat in real life. The real King Xerxes could not have been nine-feet-tall and this was an exaggeration by the film to make him more intimidating. The real King Xerxes never even went to the frontline at the Battle of Thermopylae unlike the actor portrayal in 300. There is also no evidence that has been found that states that King Xerxes and King Leonidas had ever had face to face contact unlike in the …show more content…
The one thing nearly everyone knows about Sparta, is that they were a powerful military state. The movie 300 has a scene that depicts newborn children being examined to makes sure that their physical attributes were up to Spartan standards. If the child wasn’t, they were discarded over the mountainside to plummet to its death and the bones of their kin. This scene seems to be inaccurate in the sense that the children who failed the inspection were actually abandoned on the hillside to either die or be rescued and adopted by strangers rather than just thrown off of the Cliffside. 300 also shows how at the age of seven years old, the Spartan males were sent to begin their training and education to become soldiers in the Spartan army. The depiction of this within the film was true in Spartan life. Part of the training was keeping the boys from their families and making them build their own beds from reeds to prepare them for the conditions they would come across as soldiers. This is why the boys were encouraged to steal food, but the consequence for getting caught was getting whipped in public. In order to make sure the boys would be strong enough to withstand their lives as military men, hazing and fighting was encouraged to make the boys resist the temptation to show signs of weakness such as crying. 300 shows the boys getting beaten or “flogged”, and they also show the boys also getting starved. These
The Battle of Thermopylae. There may be some people who have never heard about it before, but it was the kind of battle that people made movies out of. The movie 300 was made in 2006 and is a retelling of this famous battle during the Persian Wars in 479 BC. This battle is of important significance due to the intensity of the battle itself and the outcome. This is the battle where 300 Spartans were lead into battle by King Leonidas of Sparta. When watching the movie and having background knowledge of the battle itself and the time period, a few inaccuracies came up. There were inaccuracies in the characters and historical figures portrayed within the film, the battle itself, and Spartan lifestyle. …show more content…
Outraged by the message, Leonidas throws the messenger into a giant pit to his death. This is one of the most popular scenes in this movie and it happens to be one-hundred percent historically inaccurate. The most accurate part of Leonidas’ character was the fact that 300 included his use of catchphrases. According to Frank Miller, the movie took the writings from Herodotus and Plutarch who were Greek historians. They documented quotes such as, “Come and get them” from the exchanging of words between Leonidas and Xerxes in reference to surrendering weapons.
In the movie 300, Xerxes is depicted as being bald and about nine-feet tall. In real life, this is obviously not a reasonable feat in real life. The real King Xerxes could not have been nine-feet-tall and this was an exaggeration by the film to make him more intimidating. The real King Xerxes never even went to the frontline at the Battle of Thermopylae unlike the actor portrayal in 300. There is also no evidence that has been found that states that King Xerxes and King Leonidas had ever had face to face contact unlike in the …show more content…
The one thing nearly everyone knows about Sparta, is that they were a powerful military state. The movie 300 has a scene that depicts newborn children being examined to makes sure that their physical attributes were up to Spartan standards. If the child wasn’t, they were discarded over the mountainside to plummet to its death and the bones of their kin. This scene seems to be inaccurate in the sense that the children who failed the inspection were actually abandoned on the hillside to either die or be rescued and adopted by strangers rather than just thrown off of the Cliffside. 300 also shows how at the age of seven years old, the Spartan males were sent to begin their training and education to become soldiers in the Spartan army. The depiction of this within the film was true in Spartan life. Part of the training was keeping the boys from their families and making them build their own beds from reeds to prepare them for the conditions they would come across as soldiers. This is why the boys were encouraged to steal food, but the consequence for getting caught was getting whipped in public. In order to make sure the boys would be strong enough to withstand their lives as military men, hazing and fighting was encouraged to make the boys resist the temptation to show signs of weakness such as crying. 300 shows the boys getting beaten or “flogged”, and they also show the boys also getting starved. These