# Posted 8:59 AM by Patrick Porter  

THIS IS SPARTA: So I went and saw the film '300' last week. Oh man. It was other than something else.

To begin at the end: thousands of Greek hoplites charge into the battle of Plataea, lit up by their Corinthian helmets, wrapped in scarlet cloaks and bellowing war cries.

They are inspired by the heroism of a small detachment of Spartans, who battled and died at the 'Hot Gates' against a Persian invading force so big 'it shakes the ground.'

I have always had a thing for ancient history, both the raw reality and the wierd myths surrounding it. But as I'm an amateur, any classicists out here should feel free to come storming in.

There seems to be two dimensions of the film that have generated discussion: the stunning visual/iconographic/cinematic effects, and the politics.

Many film critics have already described the effects much more eloquently than I can here.

But when it comes to politics, some critics of the film accuse it of being an untimely celebration of reactionary militarism, or a crude allegory on the Iraq war, or an insult to Persian heritage, or even a form of 'fascist art.'

Less excitable critics also note that the film overlooks one of the big ironies of the story. The Spartans who were immortalised for defending Greek liberty were themselves elites from a slave society, an apartheid order, which was later invaded and uprooted by other Greek city-states, who freed the helots and proclaimed that Sparta was an aberration against Hellenic freedom, not the embodiment of it.

Tom Holland's recent book, Persian Fire, even argues that a Persian victory in 480/79 BC would have seemed like the sweetest liberation to the helots.

Yes yes yes. History is full of ironies and contradictions and its worth remembering that etc etc. Sparta's involvement means that it can't just be summarised as a slave society against a free society, etc. And as I've posted before, I don't particularly enjoy the preachiness of some blockbuster films.

But many people, I suspect, went along to '300' to enjoy a great story, delivered with eye-popping power. I loved most the Spartan laconic sense of humour, the Homeric-sounding rhetoric (eg. 'it is not fear that grips him. only a heightened sense of things'), the exotic charisma of Xerxes, the intensity of the combat, the very fact that it didn't try to stick too closely to historical details, the role of Persian money in Greek politics, stuff like that.

Nevertheless, the politics can't be ignored because so much has been made of it.

Its worth remembering that the film is based on a Graphic novel by Frank Miller in the 90's, which chronologically disproves the suggestion that its about contemporary events. It doesn't seem intentionally to be a statement about Persian culture across time.

If it has any political message, it is that the autonomy and liberty of a cluster of squabbling city-states might have been snuffed out forever by a massive invasion by an autocrat. Along with the 5th century renaissance that was to come in philosophy, art, architecture, political thought etc.

This wasn't the main appeal of the film for me, but the fact that the film is about a very small force resisting a very large imperialist force should not be overlooked.

if anything, I found Oliver Stone's 'Alexander' more distorting, as at several points it recycled the myth from WW Tarn and others that the Macedonian warrior-king was some kind of enlightened multiculturalist, instead of the butchering and enslaving conqueror that he actually was.

It was arguably Alexander's offensives that raped and burnt Persian culture (at least initially), rather than Thermopyle. which might have seemed to many Persians an irritating skirmish on the periphery of empire, unlike the Greco-Macedonian onslaught that was to come over 150 years later.

anyway, go and see it. even if you dislike it, there'll be plenty to talk about. (7) opinions -- Add your opinion