Is the movie "300" an accurate portrayal of the Battle of Thermopylae?

Question

Does the movie "300" accurately portray the Battle of Thermopylae? Did the Persians really have 1 million soldiers at that battle? If so, how did they supply such a large force so far from home? And did the Spartans really only have 300 soldiers at that battle?

Answer 1

Do you even have to ask this question? Jeeze!
The movie is pure Hollywood fabrication.
Also, armies of the ancient times were small due to lack of logistic support, infrastrure, and organization. Romans were the first to figure out how to setup and organize the logistics to support large field army. Imagine having to supply food and supply for just 10,000 men. Now, imaingine having to do that for 1 million men! It's not until the industrial revolution that nations were able to field armies that ranged from 250,000 and up. So it's completely ridiculous to think that an ancient power would field an army of 1 million men.

Answer 2

The filmmakers decided to go with Frank Miller's version of events, taking a little poetic license with the facts of the battle. Thermopylae actually pitted a small force of Greeks (approx 6000-7000), led by 300 Spartans, against an army of Persians that historians say numbered anywhere from 60,000 to 1,000,000. The latter number is highly improbable, but certainly the odds were aginst the Greeks. After a few days fighting, the majority of the Greeks remaining left the field to alert the other states of Greece, as well as form any nucleus of a further Greek army. They did not retreat. The Spartans and Thespians (approx 700) decided to stay and sacrifice themselves to allow the Greek armies more time to gather. They were overwhelmed the next day.

Answer 3

Haven't seen it but the other points mentioned -
Persian forces can't have been more than 300,000. Hewever, the Greeks exaggerated the figures at the time, too;
yes, there were only 300 Spartans there, though they had a foce of allies too, which they dismissed when they discovered the position had been turned. The small force made sense because at that time Thermopylae was such a narrow pass.

Answer 4

I have not seen the movie either. But historically, the Battle of Themopylae was the famous battle where the Spartan King, Leonidas and his small army of Spartans held of the Persians at the narrow pass of Thermopylae.

The famous battle and the death of Leonidas and all his men was to hold off the Persians in the narrow pass from invading Greece and capturing the Athenian fleet. I think it also gave Euboea time to evacuate.

That same day the Athenian fleet sailed and met the Persians in a Battle at Artemisium, defeating the Persians.

Answer 5

The Persian army's numbers by Herodotus.
Units Numbers
Fleet crew 517,610
Infantry 1,700,000[26]
Cavalry 80,000[27]
Arabs and Libyans 20,000[28]
Greek puppet troops 324,000
This number needs to be nearly doubled in order to account for support troops and thus Herodotus reports that the whole force numbered 5,283,220 men.
Nicholas Hammond accepts 300,000 Persians at the battle of Plataea, though he claims that the numbers at Doriskos were smaller.
The metrologist Livio Catullo Stecchini argues that Ctesias's figure of 800,000 battle troops for the Persian army is accurate and that Herodotus's figure of 1,700,000 includes both battle and support troops
Dr. Manousos Kampouris argues that Herodotus' 1,700,000 for the infantry plus 80,000 cavalry (including support) is realistic for various reasons including the size of the area from which the army was drafted (from modern-day Libya to Pakistan), the lack of security against spies, the ratios of land troops to fleet troops, of infantry to cavalry and Persian troops to Greek troops.
On the other hand, Christos Romas believes that the Persian troops accompanying Xerxes were a little over 400,000.[37]
Total 2,641,610 (with support troops).

According to Herodotus, the Greek army included the following forces:

Units Numbers
Spartans 300
Mantineans 500
Tegeans 500
Arcadian Orchomenos 120
Other Arcadians 1,000
Corinthians 400
Phlians 200
Mycenaeans 80
Thespians 700
Thebans 400
Phocians 1,000
Opuntian Locrians 13
Total 5,200+

To this number must be added 1,000 other Lacedemonians mentioned by Diodorus Siculus[39] and perhaps 800 auxiliary troops from other Greek cities. Diodorus gives 4,000 as the total of Greek troops, and Pausanias 11,200. Modern historians, who usually consider Herodotus more reliable, prefer his claim of 7,000 men.
Only 1400 stayed and sacrificed themselves to the last man.

Answer 6

The Greek were highly outnumbered and sorrounded, and it's told they only had 300. While it's impossible to say whether or not the Persians had a million, its easy to say that in that time, leading even up to the Napolianic wars, very very large troop masses were common. More so the less technology that was involved, because your army size was almost always comprable to your power.

Answer 7

I don't think that is the intent of the film. I have not seen the film but I have read the graphic novel that it is closely based on and it is a highly stylised and almost sureal version. More mythic than historic even if most of the details are true.

Answer 8

Its Hollywood for you! The majority of facts on the movie screen are Fiction!!