well lets stop there ... obviously, the movie is going to take ITs liberties with the story in order to create something for an audience in 2007, however, every review/critique i have read claims that the movie is basically 90% accurate in its account of historical events, and that the real liberties were taken in visual portrayal, grandiose battles, and idolized looking spartans ... psuedo-citation here
the one line that really sticks out in my head is the queen of sparta (gorgo) saying verbatim "freedom isn't free" ... that coupled with the overall theme of persia (read:iran) as an aggressor that needs to be stopped by the good-hearted westerners was too much ... i also remember there being several scenes with the spartans talking about how absolutely inhuman it would be to enslave an entire race of people, how that went against their ideas of "democracy" and whatnot ... well, lets take a look ...
first off, the spartans held slaves, lots of em ... in fact, the reason why the spartan army was so large was because of slaves ... they were called Helots, and were very similar to serfs of medevel europe, well, in alot of ways they had it way worse ...
"Myron of Priene, cited by Athenaeus (XIV, 657 D), specifies the humiliations they were subjected to: they had to wear hats of dog skin (κυνῆ / kunễ) as well as sheep hides (διφθέρα / diphthéra) to distinguish themselves from others. The canine symbolism was clear to the Greeks: that of a servile and cowardly animal. Each year, the Helots were ritually flogged, apparently for no other reason than to affirm their servitude; though it seems that only a small group was actually flogged, symbolically representing the whole Helot population.so it turns out the spartans owned SO many slaves they were afraid that they could easily revolt and takeover based on SHEER NUMBERS ...
The image built up by available sources is unanimous: the Helots were ritually humiliated and psychologically abused.
Myron of Priene also indicates that Helots who became too fat were put to death, with their masters fined for letting them get fat."
more on that here
"This hatred of the Spartans towards the Helots originates in fear: given the relatively small number of Spartans in comparison with the servile population, the natural fear that Helots would attempt to destroy them contributed to their mistreatment."the Helots came from Messenia, another city-state on greece close to sparta ... and so basically in order to justify the constant beatings/mistreatment of the helots, the spartans would annually declare war on messenia in order to keep a sort of martial-law ...
sound similar to anything happening today ? (read:war on drugs, war on terror, etc)
to the spartans credit, they did treat the ladies pretty damn well, especially for the era ... women could own land, and did ... up to 40% of the land in sparta was controlled by women, who also had the same rights as men when it came to divorce, and were actually encouraged to have children by men other then their husband, as was the importance of the spartan city-state over the family unit ... and to bring us back to the movie, the scene where the shady politician guy is accusing the queen of adultery in front of the council and everyones lookin all bent-out-of-shape ...
... Plutarch claims that the concept of "adultery" was alien to the Spartans, and relates that one ancient Spartan had said that it was as possible "to find a bull with a neck long enough to stand on a mountain top and drink from a river below", as to find an adulterer in Sparta.and despite the homophobic quips in the movie, every account i could find on the interwebs leans more towards the fact that the spartans did practice pederasty
more on that here
oh, and that comment in the movie about "turning your back side to the thespians" ...
The Spartans were joined by about 700 Thespians, who fought to the death with the Spartans, and the Theban detachment, whom Leonidas held as hostages and who deserted to the Persians at their first opportunityfunny they left that out of the movie ... so the great liberators and heros of freedom (the spartans) held people hostage to fight for them ... for their freedom ... ohhhhh the ironing is delicious ...
more on that here
the word is irony
alright!
now lets cross over to the dirty dirty islamo-irano-androgynous-fascist-terrorist persians and their infidel leader Xerxes I of Persia, ie Xerxes the Great ... on a side note, if you can get two "x"s in yer name, let alone, jus yer first name, props ...
well, the guy was at least a little nuts, even for the time ... when first attempting to cross the hellespont a storm rose and destroyed the bridges he had thus far built ... as punishment he literally had the water flogged 300 times and had fetters (ie shackles) thrown into the water for good measure ... thatll teach that smartass water ...
handel wrote an opera based loosely on his life
after that ... not too much info to be had ... he really didnt seem to do too much after trying to take greece and failing ... he simply might have gotten apathetic or just very comfortable living in the luxuries that an ancient king had at his disposal ... then he was assassinated by his right-hand-man
but what was life like in the achaemenid persian empire ? heres some snippets ...
... the Persians drank wine in large quantities and used it even for counsel, deliberating on important affairs when drunk, and deciding the next day, when sober, whether to act on the decision or set it aside.
Until the age of five children spent all their time among the women and never met the father, so that, should they die in infancy, he would not sorrow over their loss.
Herodotus also reports that Persian youths, from their fifth year to their twentieth year, were instructed in three things - to ride a horse, to draw a bow and to speak the Truth. Truth for the sake of truth, was the universal motto and the very core of the Achaemenid culture that was followed not only by the great kings, but even the ordinary Persians made it a point to adhere to this code of conduct.
epilogue:
to the creators of the movies credit (and reactionaries discredit), i dont think 300 was pushing any underlying agenda, per se ... however, looking through the lenses of modern day society, its kind of hard to not draw parallels with our (read:the US's) current situation in the middle east ... the rogue leader who's going it alone against a horde of infidels because he knows whats right even if the "senate" (or council, or whatever they called it in the movie) doesn't agree with him ... i guess it just seemed funny to me that throughout the whole movie, the spartans are fighting to protect their spartan values which were only the most outstanding, forward-thinking and honest of the time, when in reality, they were as bad if not worse as every other civilization of that era ... and the fact that the movie makers decided to ignore that is truly the short-coming of this flick ... i mean, portray shit evenly or portray everyone as wack, or portary everyone honestly ... were the spartans all good ? hell no ... were the persians all bad, of course not ... but especially now with modern day resentment and elevated hostility towards anything non-western, movie makers have a responsibility to not inflame these already sensitive areas ...
oh, and speaking of inflaming sensitive areas, that sex scene wit the queen and king was totally gratuitous
the end.
::addendum::
if you wanna learn more, here's some people talkin about this that are way smarter and mo betta versed than i ...
Touraj Daryaee, Professor of Ancient History at California State University, Fullerton
Interview with Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at Cambridge University
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1 comment:
I totally agree. I saw this movie with 4 other people. These were smart people who are in the arts, and they didn't see the connection to the current war at all. Thanks for looking up and articulating what I was trying to explain to them before.
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