VS.

What started the war?

In the movie, King Leonidas of Sparta provokes the invasion of Greece. When asked by an envoy of the Persian king Xerxes for a small amount of Spartan earth and water as a token of submission, Leonidas tells him he will find both at the bottom of a well then pushes him in. This is said to have occurred about a year before the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C. The Persian messenger tells Leonidas that Xerxes army is so large that it drinks rivers dry. Leonidas says the Persians claim their forces number in the millions, but adds that they surely exaggerate. The film says Leonidas can take only 300 Spartans his bodyguards to fight the invaders because Persian agents have bribed the high priests and Spartan council members to keep the army at home. Leonidas wife spends much of the movie trying to convince her Persian army fellow Spartans that they must Thermopylae fight for their survival.

DOES THE FILM MATCH THE FACTS?

Story and illustrations by Doug Griswold Mercury News

HISTORY

Sure, its fun to watch 300 nearly naked Spartans abandoned by the rest of Greece ignoring their own battle tactics to fight off a million invaders. But dont mistake this for history. Heres how Zack Snyders new movie 300 (based on Frank Millers graphic novel) stacks up against the textbooks on what really happened 2,500 years ago at Thermopylae. (OK, 2,487 years.)
The Spartans actually did throw Persian diplomats down a well. But they did it at least 10 years earlier, before the Persian king Darius invaded Greece in 490 B.C. What provoked Xerxes invasion was not Sparta but Athens, which supported the rebellion of Greek cities in Asia Minor against Persia in 499 B.C. The rebellion was crushed, but according to the Greek historian Herodotus, Darius was furious that Athens had dared to assist the rebels. He sailed to Greece in 490 B.C. to punish Athens, but was defeated by the Athenians at the Battle of Marathon. Ten years later, when Darius son Xerxes resumed his fathers unfinished business with Greece, he didnt bother to send envoys to Sparta and Athens. Xerxes spent more than four years gathering soldiers and supplies from every corner of the Persian Empire. Herodotus put the number at 2.6 million, but historians agree that he exaggerated. Modern estimates range from 150,000 to 200,000 still an army of unprecedented size.

How big was the Persian army? Why so few Spartans?

The real question for Sparta was not whether to fight, but where. Sparta and the other cities of the Peloponnesian Peninsula wanted to abandon northern Greece, and make their stand at the narrow Isthmus of Corinth. The Athenian leader Themistocles pushed for a defense farther north, arguing that the key to defeating the Persian army was destroying its fleet. The invading force was too large to live off the land, and would starve without thousands of supply ships. The Spartan council of elders eventually supported Themistocles plan, but only Persian navy halfheartedly. Citing the religious custom banning the use of the army during the festival of Carneia, the Artemisium council gave Leonidas only 300 Ae g Spartans to join a force of about 7,000 Greek soldiers that was to delay the Persian army at the narrow pass at Plataea Thermopylae while a Greek navy fought the Corinth Persian fleet at nearby Artemisium. The Greek Athens PELOPONNESUS navy fought ferociously but could not defeat the much larger Persian flotilla.
ea nS ea

Did the Spartans fight and die alone?

The 300 Spartans take on the entire Persian Empire by themselves, assisted only once by a few dozen other Greeks. When the Greeks are betrayed by a Spartan hunchback named Ephialtes, who shows the Persians a goat path to circumvent the pass, the other Greeks leave the 300 to their fate. The film depicts gruesome, deformed men with sharpened teeth wearing silver masks who are Xerxes much-feared, undefeated elite troops. Leonidas tells the Spartans that they will put the names of these Immortals to the test.
ea

Ionia
nS

Sparta

Salamis Island Salamis Island

The 300 Spartans were not alone in this battle. On the first day, the Spartans took the front line. On the second day, the other Greek contingents were rotated into the front line, taking their turn beating off attack after attack. A Greek traitor named Ephialtes did assist the Persians. When his treachery was discovered, Leonidas ordered the bulk of his army to escape so they could fight again. When Leonidas and his 300 stayed to cover their retreat, they were joined by 700 men from Thespiae who considered it an honor to die fighting beside Spartans.
Miles

50

Leonidas
In the movie, the king of Sparta is played by the Scottish-born actor Gerard Butler.

Did the Persian army have soldiers called Immortals?

The Persian army did have a division of 10,000 elite soldiers that Herodotus called the Immortals because if any died in battle, they were immediately replaced never allowing their number to drop below 10,000. According to relief sculptures in the ruins of Persepolis (the capital of ancient Persia), they were armed with a spear, a bow and a quiver of arrows. They served as the kings bodyguards and the core of the army. Used against the Greeks at Thermopylae after lesser units failed, they also were repulsed with heavy casualties.

Themistocles
The Athenian leader and architect of the Greek victory over Persia.

Hollywood Spartan
HELMET In the movie, only the kings helmet has a decorative crest on top. WEAPONS Primarily, they fight with a spear, usually thrusting it, and occasionally throwing it. Short swords also are used. BODY ARMOR The Spartans of 300 fight bare-chested, with metal protection only below the knees.

Historic Spartan

Did the Spartans fight like that?

In the movie, Leonidas explains that the strength of the Spartans comes from the phalanx the formation of men in a row with overlapping shields, forming a single impenetrable unit. Though the Spartans in 300 start the battle this way, before long they are rushing forward to fight as individuals. In reality, the phalanx had to stay together. The men in the phalanx, bearing 70 pounds of armor and weapons, would push against the enemy line, thrusting their long spears over their shields at any patch of unprotected flesh, while the ranks of their comrades pushed at their backs. If the phalanx broke, defeat was inevitable.

HELMET Greek helmets in this era all had crests, frequently of horsehair, to make the soldier look taller and more imposing. WEAPONS The primary weapon of the Spartan was the thrusting spear. It was never thrown (although javelins were). Normally, he used his sword only if his spear broke. BODY ARMOR Although Spartans exercised and competed in games naked, it is unlikely that they went into battle that way. Chest armor was used, as were bronze shin protectors. Strips of leather hanging from the waist gave some protection to the groin.

How did the Greeks finally defeat the Persians?

Before the 300 are surrounded, Leonidas sends one of his soldiers back to Sparta to tell the story and to rally all of Greece to the cause of fighting for its freedom. A year later, a unified Greek army of 30,000 led by 10,000 Spartans defeats the Persians at the Battle of Plataea.

Sources: Andrew B. Jordan and Jonathon W. Jordan, Triumph ot the Trireme (The Quarterly Journal of Military History); David Frye, Spartan Stand at Thermopylae (Military History); John Keegan, A History of Warfare

After the defeat at Thermopylae, the Greek fleet withdrew and the Greek army retreated to the Isthmus of Corinth for its last stand. Athens, which had been evacuated, was burned by the Persians. A few weeks later, Themistocles managed to lure the huge Persian fleet into the narrow channel between the Island of Salamis and the Greek mainland. Here the Persians couldnt take advantage of their superior numbers, and half their fleet was destroyed by the Greeks. Knowing his army would starve without his supply ships, Xerxes took most of his army back to Asia. The much smaller Persian force that stayed in Greece was destroyed the following year at Plataea. Most historians agree that the turning point in the Greek-Persian War was the naval victory at Salamis. It was also a turning point in Western civilization, for apart from their contributions to literature, architecture, philosophy and the arts, the ancient Greeks were in the process of inventing democracy.