The Spartan 300

Well I promised a post on the movie 300 so here it is. If you're already familiar with the history, then it's impossible for me to spoil the ending. But, there are significant differences between the actual history and the movie, so there may be some spoilers ahead...


For those of you who haven't seen it, but are still reading anyway, the movie is loosely based on the famous last stand of 300 Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. Facing invasion from one of the mot massive armies assembled up to that point, the loosely connected Greek city-states were threatened by enslavement into the Persian empire. Massively outnumbered, an alliance of these Greek city-states sent a force of about 7,000 men to stand against an army at least 250,000 strong, but possibly ranging as high as a million. The Persians landed their forces Thermopylae and needed to traverse a very narrow mountain pass to enter open territory, where they certainly would have decimated the Greeks. But the Greeks decided to head the invasion off at this mountain pass, where the Persians' numbers would mean very little in comparison to the more skilled training of the Greeks - particularly the 300 Spartans. Despite fending off the Persians for two days, it is believed that a traitor revealed a pass around the mountain and thus the Persians were able to surround the Greeks. The Spartans sacrificed themselves in order to buy time for the remaining Greeks to mount a defense. Their sacrifice was instrumental in keeping the Persians at bay and allowing for a proper defense to be assembled. Nearly a year later, a reinvigorated alliance of Greeks assembled to defeat the Persians on land. The ultimate defeat of the Persian invasion paved the way for Greek domination of the region and an outburst of culture, knowledge, and wealth. In fact, you could say that the Spartans "saved" Western Civilization.

Being the saviors of Western Civilization, the movie focuses specifically on the 300 Spartans - their society, their values, their leader - King Leonides, and their military prowess. However, the movie equivocates the Spartans with the values of Western Civilization that they ultimately defended. The other Greek city-states are virtually ignored, particularly the paramount importance of the Athenian navy that was crucial in devastating the Persian force. And most importantly, the portrayal of Spartan society is so completely off that I suspect that this historical battle was "cherry-picked" for use as an analogy. In the movie, the Spartans are the beacon of freedom, liberty, and reason. Any historical analysis shows that the Spartans embodied the polar opposite of these values. In fact, by modern standards, Sparta would be considered a totalitarian dictatorship. Only a very small portion of Spartan society was "free", but that is quite a stretch of that word. Hand-picked at youth, a small class of young boys were taken from their families at the age of 7 and trained to become utterly ruthless warriors. The training was incredibly brutal, and the warriors that emerged could be described as savages. As for the rest of Spartan society, most of them were "helots", essentially a slave-class that took care of all the physical labor for the society. To ensure that the helots would continue to work, the warrior-class was ordered to continually make war upon the helots.

It was this brutal force that was unleashed upon the Persians at Thermopylae. The Spartans certainly had courage and strength, but in no way were they conscious defenders of freedom and reason. Instead, I suspect that the Spartans were portrayed in this fashion as an allegory for modern events. It was continually emphasized throughout the movie that the Persians sought to spread mysticism and tyranny. The Persian military looked nothing like Persians, but rather looked very much like Muslim armies. For all of these reasons, I suspect that this movie is in fact a call to arms to defend Western Civilization against Islamic fundamentalism. In support of this claim, I refer you to a NPR interview with Frank Miller, the creator of 300.

Despite some heavy artistic flaws (such as the incredibly inaccurate history and excessive violence), I applaud this movie for its message. Islamic fundamentalism is something to be strongly opposed.