About "300" MOVIE? While Empire says "NO tree should be cutted in our war"?

Question

We khnow that the battle had been happend. BUT
How much is it true about persian culture? Is that the real history of the army af Persia & clothing & people?
Was that the PERSIAN EMPIRE and its behaviour? Who has written the firs articles of association for human rights.

Answer 1

Any one who know a little about persian empire and Persian culture will protest this film. It's true that spartans were well woriors and Persians elitte warlords. Xerxes was a wise and great leader and it's a nutural Greeks and persians start to fight for save their teritory and culture but it will be a bad and stupidly made film that change history facts , and they even don't study on persian King of kings and persian real lovely and friendly culture.

Answer 2

The battle happend indeed, the clothing look quite accurate, from the perspective of what they were made of. As in the eastern countries the weather is more hot, they had to wear light armory. I'm greek however I didn't like the way they project the Persians as they were a very respected empire and enemy. The truth is that Xerxes gave many chances to the Spartans to surrender, this can only show true leadership. Spartans not only denied, but also told to the Athenians (around 10.000 army) to leave and let them fight.

Answer 3

Hi,

I have not seen the film, just the trailers. I suggest to find out how inaccurate it is, you read the passage in Herodotus about the battle and the overview of the Persian Empire and about Sparta.

I then suggest you read modern HISTORY books on the subject of the battle, Persia and Ancient Greece.

As a start, I suggest you look at Wikipedia and proceed from there. That way you will know how inaccurate it was.

However, I will give you a clue from what I saw of the trailer: Spartans didn't wear underpants in battle....

Demociticus

Answer 4

Well, several historians *have* complained about the stereotypes in the movie, especially the portrayal of the "good" "free" Spartan "democrats" versus the "bad" "slave" Persians :

"Historical accuracy"

"300's director Zack Snyder stated in an MTV interview that "The events are 90 percent accurate. It's just in the visualization that it's crazy.... I've shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it's amazing. They can't believe it's as accurate as it is." He continues that the film is "an opera, not a documentary. That's what I say when people say it's historically inaccurate". Quoted in a BBC news story, Snyder stated that the film is, at its core "a fantasy film." He also describes the film's narrator, Dilios, as "a guy who knows how not to wreck a good story with truth.""

"Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at Cambridge University, advised the filmmakers on the pronunciation of Greek names, and states that they "made good use" of his published work on Sparta. He praises the film for its portrayal of "the Spartans' heroic code," and of "the key role played by women in backing up, indeed reinforcing, the male martial code of heroic honor," while expressing reservations about its "'West' (goodies) vs 'East' (baddies) polarization.""

"However, Ephraim Lytle, assistant professor of Hellenistic History at the University of Toronto, states that 300 selectively idealizes Spartan society in a "problematic and disturbing" fashion, as well as portraying the Persians as monsters and non-Spartan Greeks as weak. He suggests that the film's moral universe would have seemed as "bizarre to ancient Greeks as it does to modern historians.""

"Military historian Victor Davis Hanson, who wrote the foreword to a 2007 re-issue of the graphic novel, states that the film demonstrates a specific affinity with the original material of Herodotus in that it captures the martial ethos of ancient Sparta and represents Thermopylae as a "clash of civilizations". He remarks that Simonides, Aeschylus and Herodotus viewed Thermopylae as a battle against "Eastern centralism and collective serfdom" which opposed "the idea of the free citizen of an autonomous polis". He further states that the film portrays the battle in a "surreal" manner, and that the intent was to "entertain and shock first, and instruct second.""

"Touraj Daryaee, associate professor of Ancient History at California State University, Fullerton, criticizes the central theme of the movie, that of "free" and "democracy loving" Spartans against "slave" Persians. Daryaee states that the Achaemenid (Persian) empire hired and paid people regardless of their sex or ethnicity, whereas in fifth-century Greece "less than 14%" of the population participated in democratic government, and "nearly 37%" of the population were slaves. He further states that Sparta "was a military monarchy, not a democracy," and adds that Sparta collectively owned an entire enslaved population (the Helots)."

"Historical accuracy" in "300 (film)", Wikipedia, 2007-04-14 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/300_%28film%29#Historical_accuracy

Answer 5

go to this article:

Home / World Wide / U.S.A. / Beware of Greek movies bearing bad history and jingoistic subtexts - Media Monitors Network (MMN)*

it's by Mr. Greg Felton is a Canadian writer on the Middle East. He writes a political column every second Thursday for the Canadian Arab News, and is writing a book on the rise of fascism in the U.S. He contributed this column to Media Monitors Network (MMN) from Canada.

Basically, my answer is summed up in this well written piece.