300's Inaccuracies

The movie ‘300’ was a great movie about the battle of Thermopylae. The battle of Thermopylae was a battle between the Persians, Spartans, and their allies that took place at the Pass of Thermopylae or Hot Gates. The movie had some historical inaccuracies. Some of them were necessary, but some were really disappointing.

In the movie, King Leonidas was portrayed as being in his mid thirties to his early forties. According to Professor Paul Cartledge, a world expert on Athens and Sparta in the Classical Age, King Leonidas was in his fifties or maybe even sixties when he died at the battle. However, I agree with Frank Miller’s (writer and illustrator of the comic 300) and Hollywood’s depiction of King Leonidas. Who would want to watch an old guy fight? I think it was necessary to portray him as a warrior in his thirties.

The Frank Miller’s Immortals of Persia looked like phantoms of the night. They were clad in black, masked, and armed with two swords. The real Immortals were heavily armed infantry with decorated clothing. I prefer Frank Miller’s depiction because it gave them a scarier look. Frank Miller turned them into something to fear.

The Spartan’s shields in ‘300’ each had a lambda, an inverted “V”, adorned onto it even though, each Spartan was supposed to have his own emblem adorned on his own shield. I think Zack Snyder, the director of the movie, was being lazy, but the shields showed how Sparta’s army is a team and that every soldier in their army worked as one big unit especially in the phalanx formation.

The portrayal of Xerxes was very false. In the movie he had nothing on but underwear, was bald, and had many piercings of gold rings on his body. He really wore a white...