Ok.
In 3 months or so - March 9th - a new movie called "300" hits theaters. "Inspired by" Frank Miller, whose graphic novels were the basis of Sin City, among others, it is a highly dramatized and no doubt highly exaggerated (!) retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, in 480 BC.
The exclamation point is for a reason. Which same I will get to in a minute.
The movie trailer is more impressive when you download it yourself, which you can do here, (Right click, Save As,) but the embed will give you the idea.
That is one seriously cool movie trailer. I can only hope that the movie will live up to its own hype.
However, because I am a bit of a history buff, I will give you a little history lesson.
In 480 BC, the Persian empire invaded Greece, which at that time consisted of a loose (
and sometimes guilty of internecine warfare) confederation of "allied" city-states. The largest of these were Athens and Sparta. Athens was more "civilised," with more technological advancement and a more urbane population.
Sparta wasn't. Sparta had dedicated its society for years to the production of the
finest soldiers the world had ever seen. Their creed when entering battle was "Come home with your shield, or on it." Which meant that they should come back having faced the enemy squarely, and stood their ground, or die in battle.
It was actually part of their religion, in a way; the royal families of Sparta were believed to be descendants of Heracles - in other words, great grandchildren (so to speak,) of the gods themselves.
But there were a lot more Persians than there were Greeks. Very quickly, the Greek armies mustered to defend against the Persians were in serious trouble, and retreating along the coast.
There were - according to the Greek plan - two battles to be fought: a naval engagement between the Athenians and the Persian navy at Artemisium, and a land defense by the forces led by Leonidas of Sparta - one of the two kings of Sparta, and therefore supposedly a son of Heracles - at Thermopylae.
Thermopylae is interesting. It is a
tiny, unavoidable pass along the coast, narrowing at one point so that at the time it would have been between 35 and 50 feet wide. It was also the only path the Persian army could take to continue attacking the Greek forces.
Leonidas, acting on a prophecy from the Oracle of Delphi saying that either Sparta would be sacked, or would mourn the death of a son of Heracles, realized he was going to his certain death at Thermopylae; his forces were
ridiculously insufficient for the task at hand. (More on this in a bit.) He therefore selected the 300 as a "
sire unit," meaning a body of men who had each fathered living sons. He told his wife that once he had left, she should marry a good man and bear him many children; took his 300, and their allies, and marched to Thermopylae.
Early indications were that the Spartans were
screwed. Spartan scouts reported that the Persian army was so vast it took 4 days to march past them, and that if camped near a river, it drank the river dry.
Leonidas, no stranger to warfare, elected to use a
relay phalanx in the pass; this would allow one line of men to fight until exhausted, and then retreat behind their
fresh, rested comrades, while the Persian front lines would grow ever more exhausted.
Themistocles, one of the other Greek leaders, arrived and informed Leonidas that the battle at Artemisium had been inconclusive, and offered the Spartans escape. Leonidas refused, and ordered Themistocles to tell the rest of the Greek alliance to gather their troops while the Spartans held the Persians at bay at Thermopylae.
Finally, the Persians arrived.
It did in fact take them four full days to complete their movement, and once encamped, the campfires of their army were reported to outnumber the stars in the Milky Way. (
Again, more on this later.)
Having gotten themselves comfortably in position, the Persian Emperor, Xerxes the First, sent a message to Leonidas demanding that the Spartans surrender their arms.
Leonidas replied, "
Molon labe!" (Come and take them!)
Xerxes was infuriated, and ordered an immediate attack. The 300 Spartans
beat the living hell out of the 20,000 soldiers Xerxes sent to attack them on the first day, and chased them off.
The second day, Xerxes ordered his personal bodyguards, the "Immortals," to attack; they were the
largest, strongest soldiers in the Persian army, and were unable to break through. The 300 Spartans held them off, and they were forced to retreat with heavy casualties.
About this time, a local resident named Ephialtes showed the Persians a mountain trail that allowed a body of Persian soldiers to attack the rear of the Greek forces. The troops left behind to guard the path fled, and Leonidas called his allied commanders together, and ordered them to retreat - all except the Thebans - about 400 - Thespians - 700 - and, of course, the 300. The remaining forces left, with orders to tell Greece
what the Spartans did to save them.
The Thespians were set to guard the mountain trail against all comers, and the Thebans and Spartans returned to their positions in Thermopylae. At the dawn of the third day of battle, Xerxes sent an emissary to demand surrender again; he met with a Spartan commander named Dienekes. The Persian emissary told Dienekes, upon his refusal to surrender, "
Our arrows will blot out the sun."
Dienekes replied, "
So much the better, we shall fight in the shade."
During this time, the 10,000 man force of the Immortals moved along the mountain trail, and defeated the 700-man Thespian forces. Although the Thespians fought bravely, they were not career soldiers; many of them were conscripts, and they had been farmers, bakers, masons and tradesmen before the war. They were overwhelmed, and the Spartans were surrounded.
King Leonidas ordered the Spartans into a wedge, and drove forward into the Persian army to attempt to kill Xerxes. Despite the enormity of the Persian army, (
more on this in a very short minute,) they got close enough to
battle his personal advisers before Leonidas was killed; the Spartans were so enraged by his death that
they were able to fight their way back to the pass with his body.
Xerxes offered, the following morning, to allow the remaining Spartans to go free if they would give up Leonidas' body; they refused, and were killed by archers.
However, the battle at Thermopylae had ruined Xerxes' morale. In less than a year, his navy had conclusively lost to the Athenians at Salamis, and finally at the battle of Palatea, his army was sent into full retreat, and defeated.
The Spartans led by King Leonidas had held the pass for four days. They paid with their lives, but they held the pass long enough to allow the Greek alliance to gather reinforcements, and
inflicted so many casualties in that time that it broke the will of a vast army.
Now is later. The reason I put off talking about the size of the Persian army is that no two historians seem to agree on it. The real number of casualties may never be known, on either side; however, I will lay out some interesting facts.
Herodotus, who wrote the first history of the battle, claimed that the Persian army numbered over
five MILLION troops, including support units. Current historians,
who weren't there, consistently claim that such numbers are simply impossible, although there has been dispute over their reasoning.
However, the
lowest estimate of the Persian troops places their number of combat effectives at 120,000.
The total Greek forces taken into the pass were 300 Spartans, 400 Thebans, and 700 Thespians.
Although modern estimates place Persian casualties at 2000, again, there is dispute. Herodotus says
the Spartans killed 20,000 men.
According to accounts of the battle from the Persian forces, the reason the Persians could not attack the Spartans in force was that by the second day the
Spartans had built a wall of the bodies of their enemies, forcing the Persians to climb over their brothers-in-arms to attack.
There are two monuments at Thermopylae; one for King Leonidas, containing a stone lion statue, and the inscription "
Come and take them." The second contains an epigram by Simonides, which refers to the 300. I prefer the Dodson transcription, as follows:
"
Friend, tell the Spartans that on this hill
We lie obedient to them still."
What follows is the translation of the prophecy given by the Delphaic Oracle, which led Leonidas to undertake the battle.
" O ye men who dwell in the streets of broad Lacedaemon!
Either your glorious town shall be sacked by the children of Perseus,
Or, in exchange, must all through the whole Laconian country
Mourn for the loss of a king, descendant of great Heracles.
He cannot be withstood by the courage of bulls nor of lions,
Strive as they may; he is mighty as Jove; there is naught that shall stay him,
Till he have got for his prey your king, or your glorious city. "
Lacedaemon being, of course, another name for Sparta.
I'm not sure how exaggerated the movie will be; but the fact remains that at Thermopylae, 1400 men stood against five million, and held them for four days.
