The Actual Story About 300

The heroic stand of the 300 guys of Leonidas from Sparta (the number according to the film 300) was among finest examples of Spartan courage against overwhelming odds.

This small number of defenders was all that stand between hundreds of countless attacking Persians and the Greek city-states. The fight was found in a really narrow pass in Thermopylae. Let us check some genuine realities about the background of this film here.

Reasons for Persian Invasion

During the battle of Thermopylae, the Persian Empire was still young and vulnerable to revolts. Some of these revolts took place in many individuals Greek city-states. Darius, wishing to broaden his empire and being a usurper, gladly used this reason to mount an expedition to punish the rebels and conquer old Greece. He sent ambassadors ahead of time to each city-state to request for a gift of “earth and water” as a token of entry. These ambassadors were tossed into a pit and well in Athens and Sparta respectively.

The initial intrusion force which landed in Marathon was repulsed leading to a decisive triumph, triggering Darius to withdraw to Asia. The Persian king raised another bigger army but this time his Egyptian topics revolted against him. This delayed his strategy to go attempt to conquer the Greeks. While preparing to march against Egypt, Darius suddenly died passing on the objective to his kid Xerxes I. When lastly the Egyptian revolt was taken down, Xerxes continued to old Greece by landing at the Hellespont.

The Fight of Thermopylae

Modern scholars would put the number of Xerxes men to be between 70,000-30,000 although old sources said that approximately 4 million soldiers comprised the Persian intrusion force. Whatever the real figures were, it can be securely assumed that the Persians had an overwhelming numerical benefit over the Greeks. This is likewise real for the Persian marine fleet that would be beaten at Salamis.