Essay --

Liam Connelly Final Project Golden Age of Greece Thermopylae and the 5,200: an Analysis of Creative License in Film There is perhaps no last stand than the famous 300 Spartans at Thermopylae who held the massive Persian army for three days in a narrow mountain pass, nearly two and a half millennia ago. When the movie 300 premiered, I was beginning to appreciate military history and I found the story of these hopelessly outnumbered Greek patriots absolutely riveting. I had known that more than a little creative license was taken after seeing some of the more fantastic scenes but some of the important historical nuances were lost in the depiction. My objective today is not to pedantically nitpick every anachronism and erroneous fact, but simply to discover why the filmmakers augmented the history with them. My primary source for comparison is Herodotus’ Book VII of The Histories, in which he describes the background and facts known to him about the battle itself. The origin of the 5,200 from which this project takes its name is the fact that Herodotus counts not only 300 Spartans but at least a full 4,900 other troops from other Greek regions who fought against overwhelming odds to hold the Persians at bay (Herodotus, 511). While the Spartans may have earned the lion’s share of the glory for their self-sacrifice, the 4,900 or so other soldiers deserve a place in this epic tale of courage and discipline. The primary formation of Greek infantry is the hoplite phalanx. Each hoplite’s hoplon, or shield, protected the man to his left and long spears gave the ranks behind the first allowed them to bring to bear a wall of bronze spears in front of them. The phalanx is a strong formation but it is vulnerable to flanking maneuvers, ... ...eks doesn’t need any tweaking or embelishments; it’s already extraordinary on its own. Indeed, nearly every genre of film audiences love today can be found in the stories of Greek dramatists, myth, tradition, and history, from romance to comedy and war. There’s a rich cultural well waiting to be drawn upon by other filmmakers to tell the story of Greece in her finest hours. I hope more directors discover that. Until then, I’ll remember the 300 as they were, not what I’d like them to have been. Works Cited Herodotus. The Histories. Trans. Aubrey De Selincourt. Ed. Betty Radice. Middlesex: Penguin, 1954. Print. Miller, Frank. Interview by Steve Daly and Entertainment Weekly. 13 Mar. 2007. Snyder, Zack, dir. 300. Prod. Gianni Nunnari, Bernie Goldman, Mark Canton, and Jeffrey Silver. 2007. Warner Bros, 2007. DVD.