It comes down to this: Sparta makes for a very uncomfortable hero. Even if you are inclined to agree that it was critical for the development of ideas of rationality, empiricism, and the natural rights of man on the time scales we have - as I emphaticly am - turning the story of the Spartan sacrifice at the Hot Gates into some jingoistic truimph of nobility over tyranny or good over evil is made very difficult by the appalling nature of the Spartans themselves.

Thebes was a democracy, correct?

I think VDH's parallel of the Sicilian Expedition and Iraq was an extremely insightful one. It's uncanny how many parallels have emerged that only make that comparison stronger -- eg, Alcibiades goes off to war, Hyperbolos turns the Athenians against Alcibiades. In the same vein, Bush's concern for domestic politics ceased c. late 2003, and when he gives occasional interviews with remotely unfriendly anchors, his mind is simply elsewhere. (Unlike most, I do not think Bush is stupid, at all.)

So now you know I'm insane.

Anyway, the nature of a democracy allows the opposition to arbitrage the lack of information on a war's progress, to an enormous extent.

This is exacerbated by the 1968 cult of peace so stubbornly prevalent among baby boomers, especially among DC and media elites, who thus fit every American military death along a curve of inevitable American defeat to romanticized guerrillas.

No Celebrim, the actual events at Thermopylae illustrate WHY Sparta and Leonidas deserve the attention they get:

About 3-6K of Greeks fought beside the Spartans, including Athenians, Thebans, and of course Thespians, for the first two days. At the third day nearly 1,000 Thespians and a few hundred Thebans stayed with the Spartans (who exchanged cloaks with the Thespians).

What happened at Thermopylae was the change under the Persian threat from city states to the very birth of nationalism (hey no wonder critics hated it and audiences loved it). And both the film and the actual events (men from other cities fighting under Spartan leadership for a shared goal, defeat the Persians, and even dying with them) point out the nationalism inherent in the event.

IF the Spartans were so odious for the times, why did 1,000 Thespians die with them?

Yes now as more advanced and progressive people (as part of the Enlightenment) we see the Spartans practices as odious and loathesome, but so too were that of the Persians, whose "gentle rule" depended solely on the whim of the ruler and had his entire empire as slaves (save himself).

But that's a smokescreen IMHO. Critics hate the movie because it celebrates the birth of the Western Nation and Western Nationalism. Which the trans-national and cosmopolitan priesthood despises, correctly intuiting it a mortal threat to their project of a new Persian Empire with themselves as God-Kings.

I think its about time to fight this one out.

Critics hate the movie because it celebrates the birth of the Western Nation and Western Nationalism.

Actually, check the reviews. Overall 60%, elite 50%. I wouldn't call that a 'hate', perhaps a 'strong dislike'. Most of the negative reviews didn't hate it, they just thought it was cheesy. Not the same thing.

The classic of history is Thuycidides and The History of the Peloponessian War because is is the timeless conflict between a reprehesive society (Sparta) and the first of the liberal democracies (Athens). Both had warts but the values of Athens were flexible enough to survive and Sparta's were not. In fact the failure of Spartan values to endure are part of the rigid inflexibility of the society.

Alex #2:

I think VDH's parallel of the Sicilian Expedition and Iraq was an extremely insightful one.

VDH made no such parallel, so you simply made this up out of whole cloth. The point he made about the Sicilian Expedition is that it was one democracy fighting another for no reason other than expansion of empire, and although the left sees a parallel with Iraq (because they see imperial expansion behind every tree) VDH doesn't, nor is there one. Iraq under Saddam was about as far from a democracy as it's possible to get... at least on this planet.

VDH does make a parallel with the Peloponnesian War, but not from the perspective of criticizing our involvement in Iraq. Rather, it's from the perspective of a too-self satisfied and wishful-thinking home front that has abandoned the will to fight and win against its enemies.

Alchemist:

Most of the negative reviews didn't hate it, they just thought it was cheesy. Not the same thing.

I guess you could put me in that category, except that it unnecessarily cheesed up a perfectly good story, turning it into something just south of a comedy.

Jim:

I'm very familiar with the real events.

Where the Spartans odious even for the brutal times? Actually, I think that they were. I won't argue the point with you, I'll just point out to you that Sparta doesn't go on. Sparta has it's time of glory and then ultimately the immorality of the state sends it to its own self-contrived doom.

Did the Greeks of the time see it that way? No, not at all, or if they found the Spartans loathsome it wasn't for any of the reasons that I do. In fact, I've said elsewhere that the Greeks of the time (Athens probably excluded) romanticized the Spartans even more than we do. The Spartans were dashing. The Spartans were Heroic. The Spartans could be seen as the exemplars of the brutal ethical code of the greek city states - loyal, ruthless, patriotic, martial, stoic, austere, and disciplined. Sometimes it's easy to forget that the Greek myths are religious in nature, or what virtues that those stories were designed to inspire. The Spartans certainly found admirers and allies more easily than the Athenians - ambitious, merchantile, philosophical, cosmopolitian, soft(?), pompous(?), and greedy(?).

I don't think that this should be too hard to understand. I think that any analogy is prone to go astray, but I'll risk one. If you'd gone to Paris in say 1968, which would you have found more admirers of - the USSR or the USA? My point is only that just because something is admired at the time, doesn't make it worthy of admiration.

Actually, I own an apology to Alex. There are parallels in terms of domestic politics, and I think that's what you were pointing out. Sorry about the misunderstanding.

You presume to think the universe cares one whit about humans and what they think.

Hah!

I haven't seen the movie, since I hardly ever like historical "epics" (Master and Commander was a welcome exception). Too much anachronistic politics and moralizing. This thread doesn't make me change my mind.

Yes, the Spartans could be jerks. They bathed twice a year, beat their children to make them tough, and hunted human beings. They valued athletic and martial prowess above all else, and they mercilessly bullied and exploited the weak. They were the sweating, farting, towel-snapping jocks of Greek civilization.

They are also remembered for their stand at Thermopylae, which has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with who or what they were, what the war was about, or whether the Persians or the Greeks were in the right or in the wrong. Their fate was tragic, and for thousands of years people have appreciated that tragedy. It's part of what Vergil called lacrimae rerum sunt, "these are the tears of things": the sorrow of the human condition. We don't have to apologize for it or endlessly qualify it.

Reading Herodotus for history is like watching Oliver Stone movies. He gets the gist of what is going on and embellishes it with hearsay, rumor, superstition and obviously his own political views. His writing about the 300 Spartans and everything else that he reports should be taken with a huge grain of salt. There is very little of what we call history in his work.

#3 from Jim Rockford

Thespians are actors. So named after Thespis, who was said to be the originator of Greek Drama. The inhabitants of Thebes are Thebans.

Other Greek cities had more warriors at The Hot Gates than Sparta. Sparta's 300 won the greatest renown for their conduct and demeanor, but it was not at all Sparta's victory alone, and it is wrong to portray it as such.

It's also wrong to portray Sparta as proto-totalitarian - a term that applies to Plato's Republic, but not to the real Sparta. A totalitarian/politicist approach seeks to control peoples' thoughts at all times, and punishes people for having the wrong thoughts. Sparta was a state with a strong training and class system, and a secret police (which most states throughout history have had in various forms) who punished those who had acted in ways deemed treasonable in rather summary fashion. This set it apart somewhat from other Greek states, but not from other states of its era or indeed of many subsequent eras.

I'll add that the Greeks as a whole certainly seem to have seen their conflict with Persia as a battle that revolved around freedom as they understood it.

No surprise, given that Persia was an empire ruled by a king with no limits on his power whatsoever, and absolute power of life and death over every other citizen at all times, on the basis of nothing more than whim. Even Sparta's krypteia needed far more justification than that, and had notable limits on whom it could target and why. Many of the "Persian" soldiers at Thermopylae weren't exactly Persians, either, but contingents of subject peoples.

There is a lineal descent from the Greek polis to our present form of government. There is no lineal descent whatsoever from this Persian conception.

TOC:

He gets the gist of what is going on and embellishes it with hearsay, rumor, superstition and obviously his own political views. His writing about the 300 Spartans and everything else that he reports should be taken with a huge grain of salt. There is very little of what we call history in his work.

By the Majestic Rack of Warlike Athena, we can't even talk about ancient Greeks without somebody trying to piss me off.

Listen up, Miss Grundy. History as we know it did not exist when Herodotus was alive, so you might as well accuse him of not being a helicopter pilot. Nevertheless, I'll take him over all your axe-grinding "historians", from Livy to Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and all your politically correct creeps who collect National Book Awards.

You suggest that his numbers are a tad off. No kidding? Everybody's numbers were off - the ancients were not as obsessed with exact figures as we are, and had no means of knowing how many people were at the battle of Marathon other than by "hearsay".

Rumor and superstition? Anyone who's read any Herodotus knows that he gives every available version of a story, quite unlike someone who peddles a political viewpoint. Anthropologists are grateful for these "rumors", even if you aren't. Herodotus makes his own viewpoint clear, when he has one. That's honesty, not bias - otherwise Herodotus would be the Father of Journalism, too. "My duty is to report all that is said; but I am not obligated to believe it all alike: a remark which may be understood to apply to my whole History."

So maybe the giant shoe of Perseus was a fake, and Egyptian women didn't really urinate standing up. Get over it. Herodotus rules.

Clearly there are folks who cannot enjoy an action movie because it is an action movie. The question is whether or not it is realistic to expect Hollywood to be realistic in this particular genre which is the comic novel brought to life. If humorless critics could get over that, then perhaps we could talk about the infinitely less entertaining History Channel show about the 300.

But I'd rather not.

Where do I get started?

The basic role models of Western civilization are Athens and Sparta. Polar opposites at some level: naval power-land power, free society (yeah, yeah, Athens had slaves like everyone else)-slave-holding society, great writings and chronicles-only thing we know about them is what Athenians said about them, origin of democracy-close knit good-old-boy-acracy, and so on. Opposites, yes, both both Greek.

In the American Civil War, the North was Athens, and the South was most definitely Sparta - don't think I need to go down the list of analogies. WW-II? Allies, Athens, Nazi Germany, definitely saw itself as Sparta on so many levels (saw itself as Ancient Rome, but those aspects of it patterned after Sparta).

In the Cold War, we saw ourselves as Athens and our Russian adversary as Sparta, although they may have had an entirely different take on it. The posturing and bluster and alliances of the Cold War were viewed as the prequel to the Peloponessian War and we tried to draw lessons from that tragedy to avert a similar fate in the Cold War.

Modern America: Blue State-Red State, Athens-Sparta -- need I say any more? The folks blogging and commenting on blogs, anti-war or chicken hawk, global warming alarmist or global warming don't-worry-be-happy -- we are for the most part Athenians through and through. The Spartans among us are over in Iraq doing their duty and not saying that much, perhaps seething over the bluster of the Athenians.

Like everybody else, the Spartans had their noble side, and they had their dark side inasmuch as the Spartans were like Nazis and the Nazis were Spartans of a certain era. The same can be said about Athenians -- democracy, letters, arts, great Navy, yes, but nothing but talk-talk-talk, Rumsfeld is an idiot, Bush is an idiot, the invasion of Iraq was four years ago and we are so much worse off for it, Scooter Libby (Athens was great for demonizing people as part of the "democractic process" and for exiling them or worse -- it was a real free-for-all of demogogary) -- all of this is just so Athens.

If anything, the Spartans were the book ends on the great flowering of Classical Greek civilization, the institution that is the underpinning of the modern world. The alliance of the fractuous city states and the events at Thermopylae where the Spartans saved the Athenian bacon marked the founding of that great culture, and the Peloponessian War, where the Greeks turned on each other, mark the end of that era because it paved the way for Philip, Alexander, and later the Romans to take over.

Currently, we Athenians are relying on the Spartans in our midst, motivated by their Spartan honor code - a social institution that we look upon with some suspicion and regard as somewhat primitive in its outlook - we rely upon them to fight off a foreign foe in preservation of our freedom. We Athenians look upon our Spartans as barbarians, and I imagine the Spartans look upon us as so much talk-talk-talk, hippie freaks marching an carrying signs (the anti-war marches are so completely Athenian), bunch of pointy-headed pseudo-intellectuals (also Athenian).

I keep saying "we" Athenians, and to the extent that I regard the Iraq War as a "necessary evil" and victory in Iraq a condition for maintaining our culture in present form, I guess I am a Chicken Hawk because I made no effort to seek military service when I was of age, and I know people who have served in Iraq only by aquaintence. But I am as much Athenian as the ANSWER and Code Pink protesters because I am part of the great American debating society that is fighting more with itself than with any foreign enemy. President Bush patterns himself after the Spartans, and he clothed himself in hoplite armor (an F-102 air-defense interceptor - not a safe military specialty even in peace time training) although he didn't quite force himself into the ranks of the 300, his appeal is to the Spartans among us (and Athenians with Spartan sympathies), but even President Bush is an Athenian when it comes down to it (Yankee-preppie upbringing). As far as Bush Derangement Syndrome, that kind of thing is par for the course in Athenian politics.

Oh, but the splash this movie is making. It must have hit a nerve in here in Athens. The parallels to the conflicts within American society are uncanny. And the reaction of the chattering classes to that movie are just so Athenian it boggles the mind.

I guess as long as we have Spartans within our midst, we are still safe as a culture from the foreign foe. What we need to worry about is not the Iraqi Civil War, but the next American Civil War, and when the Athenians and Spartans take up arms against each other, it will get truly ugly and that will mark the end of American ascendency.

#15 from Glen Wishard

Glenn> Glad I could help you get that off your chest. I see you are a Tom Cruise fan.

Joe:

It's also wrong to portray Sparta as proto-totalitarian - a term that applies to Plato's Republic, but not to the real Sparta. A totalitarian/politicist approach seeks to control peoples' thoughts at all times, and punishes people for having the wrong thoughts. Sparta was a state with a strong training and class system, and a secret police (which most states throughout history have had in various forms) who punished those who had acted in ways deemed treasonable in rather summary fashion. This set it apart somewhat from other Greek states, but not from other states of its era or indeed of many subsequent eras.

I submit that they were proto-totalitarian in that they were extremely successful at controlling thought and action, for a society/culture that lacked any modern communication or repression technology. It was a unique convergence of factors, but they were distinctly unlike both other Greek city states or the major classical tyrannies.

Yes, it's not a perfect match with modern totalitarianism... but the pieces of the system were nearly all present. It has most of the elements of totalitarianism that Paul Berman identified in Terror and Liberalism, including the suicide-warrior-as-icon, and the uniformity of dress and behavior. It was an early stage of the phenomenon, and quite remarkable given the limitations under which the experiment labored.

Moreover, my real reason for pointing out the totalist nature of the Spartans is that I have a theory about the fact that totalitarianism (or the idea) emerged around the same time as liberalism (or at least the stoical origins of liberalism) and that, therefore, the two principles might be related, or are some kind of complements. It's almost as though the freedom of thought and action inherent in liberalism led people to experiment with its "constructive" suppression.

Strictly speaking, we didn't even see the fully totalitarian version of Islam until it had merged to some extent with deviant western philosophy...

TOC:

Thespians are actors. So named after Thespis, who was said to be the originator of Greek Drama.

I'll bet this is one of those times when you wish you could delete a post?

There were 700 Thespians at Thermopylae, and I'm guessing almost none of them were actors.

One thing that seems be ignored in the pro-Spartan position is that its modern apologists generally see Sparta as part of a larger Greek mosaique, so there is no implicit rivalry between Athens and Sparta, only a wish that they best of both would be united.

That would have been the position of many of the Athenian philosophers. "Many of the noblest and best of the Athenians always considered the Spartan state nearly as an ideal theory realised in practice;..." [Mueller:Dorians II, 192]. It was also the position of America's founding fathers who saw much to admire in Sparta's constitution and regretted that Athens and Sparta did not form a more constructive confederacy.

Any successful community back in the ancient world had a very strong culture and a sense of who made the "in group" and who was not. All communities teach their values to their children. When community cohesiveness is essential for survival (and was for all mankind until very recently historically), deviations from the norm are not accepted. It is a luxury only the very wealthy can afford. It is incorrect to call this a kind of proto-totalitarianism. Totalitarianism implies something more than fierce community standards. It is simply that Sparta was more brutal than the norm.

Sparta had a very strong division of powers among its leadership. Two kings instead of one, an assembly, and elected ephors. There were real checks on power - something not seen in real totalitarian states which depend on cults of personality and concentration of power. The founder of the Spartan constitution, Lycurgus, has been held up as a role model for this.

The status of the Helots in the Spartan state is very problematic for modern sensibilities. They were actually treated better than actual slaves, but the Spartan system required systemic humiliation and abuse of them. While bad, this is not totaliarianism.

It is very common to see the Athenians as good, and the Spartans as bad, but we forget that during the Peloppenisian War Athens was an empire that coerced and subjugated other city states, while Sparta was content to stay at home and abuse its Helots. Moreover, Athens had blackened the name of democracy - associated with horrors of mob rule - that it was disparaged for a very long time. Even America's Founding Fathers made sure they called the government a republic, not a democracy.

Calling Sparta a tyranny is even worse because the Greeks had a very specific definition of such, and Sparta did not fit.

Applying modern political terms to the ancient world can conceal more than it reveals.

Alex #2:

Actually, Victor Davis Hansen specifically rejected the analogy to the Gulf War II with Athen's Sicilian Expedition.

What he said in NRO was that if you wanted a real modern-day analogy to the Sicilian Expedition, you would have to imagine an America that was engaged in a war on Islamic Extremism...and then decided to open a new front by attacking democratic INDIA.

Demosophist,

Good post. I agree with the proto-totalitarian take, on Sparta. Not that Spara didn't have admirable qualities.

A movie is a movie, and as has been said earlier, people will see what they want.

There is a subsection of conservatives that see the persian "fight for freedom", against Persian hordes, and see a celebration of the U.S values against Arabs/Iranians values.

There are some who point out that the "unbeatable empire of overwhelming might" today, is the U.S. - and that insurgents would get inspiration in terms of defending their land against a strong interloper.

One of the questions that the director has received is, "Is Xerxes Bush?".

There are different qualities in the film, that can be extrapolated as analogous, to DIFFERENT modern-day groups.

For example, the prime importance of HONOR, above all else, in Sparta.

As we know, honor and shame, have as a primary role in arabic countries - hence the notion of HONOR KILLINGS.

All based on honor.

Another strand brought out here by Demosophist is, the proto-totalitarianism of Sparta, as opposed to the freedom and democracy of Athens.

My own opinion, is that ALL of these count as valid interpretations of various strands of the movie.

What is important of THIS particular battle, is the "success facing overwhelming odds". That courage, determination and kick-a$$ness, is why the battle is notable, thousands of years later.

Foreigner:

Thanks. I sort of felt like I came down too hard on Alex, because I think his intention was to point out the correspondences on the home front, and not on the specific conflict with the Sicilians as similar to Iraq. Interesting to know that VDH specifically rejected the parallel though.

Chris:

Sparta had a very strong division of powers among its leadership. Two kings instead of one, an assembly, and elected ephors. There were real checks on power - something not seen in real totalitarian states which depend on cults of personality and concentration of power. The founder of the Spartan constitution, Lycurgus, has been held up as a role model for this.

Interestingly the notion of a cult of personality is not one of the characteristics of totalitarian movements that Paul Berman identified, although I take your point about division of powers. Nor is it one of the things that Gellner sees as necessary for a "charismatic society". Personality cults are one way to fulfill the need for legitimacy, but they're not the only way. And had Max Weber lived a bit longer he might have identified this.

I don't buy your argument about the Helots and "modern sensibilities" though. It smacks of the "Epicurean Fallacy,": that it's really just a matter of taste. If the domination of the Helots doesn't qualify as a proto-terror regime I don't know what does.

I agree it's more complex than I'm making out. But I think there's something to be learned by viewing Sparta as a very early and rudimentary stab at totalitarianism.

It is very common to see the Athenians as good, and the Spartans as bad, but we forget that during the Peloppenisian War Athens was an empire that coerced and subjugated other city states, while Sparta was content to stay at home and abuse its Helots.

Gosh, just like the US vs NoKo?

I'm not really setting up a scale of evil here, so who was "better" isn't really the point. The interesting point is that the two existed at the same time in something of a symbiosis, and the critical question would be: Is that a necessary scenario? Is it possible for democratic self-governance to completely eradicate totalitarianism, or does democracy establish the conditions for the totalitarian compulsion to arise?

Or to put it another way, are democracy and liberalism the final destination?

Calling Sparta a tyranny is even worse because the Greeks had a very specific definition of such, and Sparta did not fit.

And for the third or fourth time, I not only haven't called Sparta a tyranny I've said there's a very important distinction between totalitarianism and tyranny.

With respect to the proper interpretation of the movie, I think the writer's perspective needs at least some consideration:

_ I could never stomach the flower-child twaddle of the '60s crowd and I was ready to believe that our flag was just an old piece of cloth and that patriotism was just some quaint relic, best left behind us.

It was all about the ideas. I schooled myself in the writings of Madison and Franklin and Adams and Jefferson. I came to love those noble, indestructible ideas. They were ideas, to my young mind, of rebellion and independence, not of idolatry.

...

Patriotism, I now believe, isn't some sentimental, old conceit. It's self-preservation. I believe patriotism is central to a nation's survival. Ben Franklin said it: If we don't all hang together, we all hang separately. Just like you have to fight to protect your friends and family, and you count on them to watch your own back.

Frank Miller on Patriotism

If the writer's influences were the American founders then that would explain a lot of the pro-Spartan sentiment.

PD:

If the writer's influences were the American founders then that would explain a lot of the pro-Spartan sentiment.

Thanks. I just really regret the silly depiction, especially some of the images. I don't know whether the writer was responsible for that, or whether it was a production decision that over-ruled the writer (as often happens in Hollywood).

The Alamo was a better movie, but Santa Anna and the Mexicans don't make quite the foil that Xerxes and the Persians do. I'm one of the few people who doesn't like the 24 Series, and for some of the same reasons I didn't like this movie. It's just, too much... if you know what I mean.

Demo -

Sorry, reality is kicking my ass. Will get a decent response together tomorrow or maybe late tonight...

A.L.

The alliance of the fractuous city states and the events at Thermopylae where the Spartans saved the Athenian bacon
=================================

er, actually, the Athenians saved everybody's bacon by winning the battle of Salamis. Quiet is its kept, Thermophylae was a LOSS
Read your history, brother.

The city state system seemed to have been a laboratory for every political idea imaginable. Unfortunately, most political ideas are bad, so its not surprising that we don't like most of what the Greeks came up with.
Even Athenian democracy was not perfect, but then most ideas & systems don't start off perfect.

A.L.:

Sorry, reality is kicking my ass.

Well, I understand. I had a bad diagnosis from a colinoscopy, and now I have a ";" instead of a ":". I'm coming out of it though. No worries.

Guys -

Everyone seems to be ignoring the elephant in the room. This movie was NOT based on any purported, historically accurate account of the battle of Thermopylae.

Frank Miller used the battle as the starting point for a fictionalized graphic novel. While he tried to stay somewhat true to ground the dtroy and make it more interesting at a certain level, that was in a very limited sense.

What he was trying to do was to take the very outline of what happened, the ideas and images, and exaggerate and fictionalized them to tell a cool looking story. Nothing more. Sin City is not an accurate depiction of police work, dancers, the clergy, or psychopaths, either.

Another example of this is Dan Simmons recent work based on the Greek gods and Mount Olympus, basing them on Mars and adding a lot of other elements as well that have nothing to do with Greek gods. If a movie was made of that, would everyone here be arguing that the Greek gods and Mount Olympus couldn't have been on Mars?

I think WAY too much is trying to be read into a movie where even the biggest fans see it as over-the-top spectacle, and accept it for what it is.

Fiction.

The comic review . . .

I pulled out the comic book, er graphic novel to refresh my recollection. As an initial matter, this comic came out in 1998. The attempt to retrofit this enterprise into any current events seems completely misplaced.

As to some of the specific comments:

And what was that effeminate multi-culti giant Xerxes, putting is big paws on Leonidas' shoulders during their negotiation scene, supposed to be about?

This scene is in the comix. But I don’t think Xerxes is necessarily portrayed as homosexual. He is wearing make-up (which I think was common in some near-Eastern regions) and displaying ostentatious wealth. The eye make-up and ornamentation suggest two things. (1) that Xerxes reflects both male and female characteristics, i.e. godhood and (2) Xerxes is cosmopolitan and imperial when compared to the Spartan tribe. When Xerxes places his hand on Leonidas’ shoulder, we are first given the sense of perspective that Xerxes is much larger than Leonidas, again reflecting the disparate strengths of their governance. Having not seen the movie, I am getting the impression that fealty to the original material may not have worked here.

NOTE: In one of the letter columns, Miller is taking to task for a scene in which a Spartan call Athenians boy lovers. Miller’s response is (1) the Spartans almost certainly practiced homosexuality, (2) there is also evidence they tended to lie about it, and (3) thus its not a far leap to postulate that they might criticize their hedonistic rivals for something they themselves did.

charging rhino three times the size of an African White Rhino

I didn’t see any rhinos in the comix. A couple of elephants.

images from Christian iconography

Didn’t catch that . . . (may not have sharp eyes)

The Spartans didn't cut their warrior teeth fighting wolves. They were fighting and stalking humans.

Leonidas’ killing of a wolf is not recounted as if it is common to Spartan culture. It basically sets a frame for 300 in which Leonidas is confronted and trapped by a predator (i.e., Persia) that is stronger than him, but using his cunning and bravery defeats the wolf. His men like to tell the story, not because it’s mundane, but because it reflects the best of what they want to be.

I think WAY too much is trying to be read into a movie where even the biggest fans see it as over-the-top spectacle, and accept it for what it is. Fiction.

No, I think Miller is quite clear in a number of places that he sees this comic as illustrating a battle that has greater meaning than either the sum of its action sequences or its historicity.

Demosophist, I know its unfair. You weren’t given a comic to read before you went into the movie theatre . . .

One of the things that comes out in re-reading 300 though (in all of 15 minutes) is that one of the central villains is religious authority. The Spartans have two Achilles’ heals in the book: (1) devotion to the oracles and (2) eugenic devotion to physical perfection.

Demosophist, my real reason for pointing out the totalist nature of the Spartans is that I have a theory about the fact that totalitarianism (or the idea) emerged around the same time as liberalism (or at least the stoical origins of liberalism) and that, therefore, the two principles might be related

It seems to me that once one dispenses with rule justified by might, then society needs some organizing principle. It also seems to me that most of these organizing principles entail some degree of social engineering and generally the more social engineering necessitated the less liberal the system.

"er, actually, the Athenians saved everybody's bacon by winning the battle of Salamis. Quiet is its kept, Thermophylae was a LOSS
Read your history, brother."

Apart from the Near Eastern custom of celebrating your backside-whuppings (Field of the Blackbirds anyone?), sometimes a battlefield defeat can be a strategic victory if it gives you some time to regroup, counterattack, fight on another front. It is generally regarded that the battle at Thermopylae did just that, unless one wants to get into a technical/revisionist analysis of the whole thing.

Little has been written in these comments on the nature and import of τιμη, usually translated 'honor', in Greek culture and in this battle. τιμη is absolutely central to understanding the Spartans, the admiration of the Athenians for them and why this battle resonates so deeply.

To understand τιμη, you have to immerse yourself in a world in which any afterlife is at best shadowy and unattractive. It's what a man can do here in this world and what people will say and remember about him that is his 'immortality'.

Factor in the fact that Greek culture emerged not from large city-state agriculture, as in the middle east, but from the transmigratory proto-IndoEuropeans. It is a very significant event when, in the Old Testament, Abraham purchases a cave for that is a foreshadowing that the pastoralist Hebraoi would later be given that land to Israel by YHWH and would, under David, model themselves to some degree on those surrounding cultures.

But in 5th century Greece the model for one's identity was still in many ways the bronze age of the Homeric epics. Not land, not houses or palaces, but one's earned reputation, the honor one won by valor, THAT was the key wealth of a Greek man. τιμη is the honor one receives as a recognition of worth and achievement. This meaning extended to the gifts a king might give in recognition of a fighter's valor -- they too are called his τιμη and withholding them was a slight that could lead to enmity and death.

When we look at the Spartans, above all we see a culture that preserves the virtue of τιμη. When the fat, scheming and hegemonist mercantile leaders of Athens honored Sparta, it was because the Spartan military class preserved that old virtue but Athens had lost it -- and they knew it.

Pursuit of τιμη could result in narrow egotistical selfishness and what to use looks like senseless violence. But occasionally it could motivate men to acts of sublime honor and selflessness -- and that is exactly what occurred at Thermopylae among the Spartans and the other Greeks who stayed to face certain death. Certain physical death, that is -- but immortaility in song and legend since that day. For the early Greeks, and for all who believe that there are things worth fighting and dying for, that is reward indeed.

Μωλων Λαβε. We will not throw down our arms and submit to being slaves for the mere sake of saving our necks at the moment. Our τιμη demands otherwise.

what to use

PD:

And what was that effeminate multi-culti giant Xerxes, putting is big paws on Leonidas' shoulders during their negotiation scene, supposed to be about? This scene is in the comix. But I don’t think Xerxes is necessarily portrayed as homosexual. He is wearing make-up (which I think was common in some near-Eastern regions) and displaying ostentatious wealth. The eye make-up and ornamentation suggest two things. (1) that Xerxes reflects both male and female characteristics, i.e. godhood and (2) Xerxes is cosmopolitan and imperial when compared to the Spartan tribe. When Xerxes places his hand on Leonidas’ shoulder, we are first given the sense of perspective that Xerxes is much larger than Leonidas, again reflecting the disparate strengths of their governance. Having not seen the movie, I am getting the impression that fealty to the original material may not have worked here.

All I know is that when that scene came on the theater erupted in laughter.

No, I think Miller is quite clear in a number of places that he sees this comic as illustrating a battle that has greater meaning than either the sum of its action sequences or its historicity.

Demosophist, I know its unfair. You weren’t given a comic to read before you went into the movie theatre . . .

One of the things that comes out in re-reading 300 though (in all of 15 minutes) is that one of the central villains is religious authority. The Spartans have two Achilles’ heals in the book: (1) devotion to the oracles and (2) eugenic devotion to physical perfection.

Interesting. It may simply be too much to ask a comic (or "graphic novel") to carry the weight of a message as serious as this. Imagine, for instance, if someone turned the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse and the "Bloody Angle" into a comic book? Disney had some designs on creating a Civil War theme park near Manassas and wisely gave it up, after Shelby Foote and others pointed out what a thoroughly disrespectful idea it was. I tend to think our entertainment industry is the part of our culture least capable of understanding these things (although there have been good Civil War movies).

It seems to me that once one dispenses with rule justified by might, then society needs some organizing principle. It also seems to me that most of these organizing principles entail some degree of social engineering and generally the more social engineering necessitated the less liberal the system.

This isn't far from Max Weber's analysis of "legitimation", except that he'd probably argue that all societies, even those resting on sheer might, need some degree of social legitimacy; and that there are only three from which to choose: charisma, tradition, and legal-rationality (procedure). It is certainly true that the less social legitimacy a regime has, the more it must maintain itself through sheer might and terror.

It is certainly true that the less social legitimacy a regime has, the more it must maintain itself through sheer might and terror.

Yes. But I think you're in danger of imposing a foreign category when you view the Spartan state this way. Helots occupied an unusual and complex stratum in the Spartan state. Officially the property of the state and tied to the land, they could nonetheless execute legal contracts, marry at will and earn emancipationas a result of military service. Many were in fact trained as hoplites and served, but this appears to have been voluntary, not forced.

Still, the small number of birth-Spartans as compared to the Helots there (and in other states) did lead to serious social problems and insecurities and that is indeed why the latter were treated harshly.

"Interesting. It may simply be too much to ask a comic (or "graphic novel") to carry the weight of a message as serious as this. Imagine, for instance, if someone turned the Battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse and the "Bloody Angle" into a comic book? "

I blame Homer, turns a perfectly serious 10 year war into a pissing match between a demi-god and the jerk that towed them over there.

Joe Katzman:

I would argue that the Spartans DID engage in thought control. Recall their practice of taking children away from their parents at age 7 (which even 20th Century totalitarians didn't dare do), raising them in military barracks, and indoctrinating them with the belief that there was no end higher than the State. Coupled with their "iron curtain" policy of blocking out foreign art and philosophy, and I'm not really sure what sort of independent thought was even possible there.

PD Shaw:

Interesting that you see religious authority as being a villain in the graphic novel. I don't have my copy where I'm currently living, but I'll have to read it more closely next time.

What you're saying is certainly be in keeping with a rationalist view of Herodotus. Herodotus reports that the reason why the Spartans were reluctant to send warriors because they were celebrating a religious festival. Meanwhile, the rest of Greece didn't want to commit troops because they were celebrating the Festival of Olympus.

Western Civilization might have died had the Greeks not been willing to (feebly) break religious custom.

Below is another link to a Frank Miller interview on NPR (scroll down to the comments) which makes me suspect that he might be an anonymous Winds commentor. Oh, what the heck, I'll quote the whole excerpt:

_NPR: […] Frank, what’s the state of the union?

FM: Well, I don’t really find myself worrying about the state of the union as I do the state of the home-front. It seems to me quite obvious that our country and the entire Western World is up against an existential foe that knows exactly what it wants … and we’re behaving like a collapsing empire. Mighty cultures are almost never conquered, they crumble from within. And frankly, I think that a lot of Americans are acting like spoiled brats because of everything that isn’t working out perfectly every time.

NPR: Um, and when you say we don’t know what we want, what’s the cause of that do you think?

FM: Well, I think part of that is how we’re educated. We’re constantly told all cultures are equal, and every belief system is as good as the next. And generally that America was to be known for its flaws rather than its virtues. When you think about what Americans accomplished, building these amazing cities, and all the good its done in the world, it’s kind of disheartening to hear so much hatred of America, not just from abroad, but internally.

NPR: A lot of people would say what America has done abroad has led to the doubts and even the hatred of its own citizens.

FM: Well, okay, then let’s finally talk about the enemy. For some reason, nobody seems to be talking about who we’re up against, and the sixth century barbarism that they actually represent. These people saw people’s heads off. They enslave women, they genitally mutilate their daughters, they do not behave by any cultural norms that are sensible to us. I’m speaking into a microphone that never could have been a product of their culture, and I’m living in a city where three thousand of my neighbors were killed by thieves of airplanes they never could have built.

NPR: As you look at people around you, though, why do you think they’re so, as you would put it, self-absorbed, even whiny?

FM: Well, I’d say it’s for the same reason the Athenians and Romans were. We’ve got it a little good right now. Where I would fault President Bush the most, was that in the wake of 9/11, he motivated our military, but he didn’t call the nation into a state of war. He didn’t explain that this would take a communal effort against a common foe. So we’ve been kind of fighting a war on the side, and sitting off like a bunch of Romans complaining about it. Also, I think that George Bush has an uncanny knack of being someone people hate. I thought Clinton inspired more hatred than any President I had ever seen, but I’ve never seen anything like Bush-hatred. It’s completely mad.

NPR: And as you talk to people in the streets, the people you meet at work, socially, how do you explain this to them?

FM: Mainly in historical terms, mainly saying that the country that fought Okinawa and Iwo Jima is now spilling precious blood, but so little by comparison, it’s almost ridiculous. And the stakes are as high as they were then. Mostly I hear people say, ‘Why did we attack Iraq?’ for instance. Well, we’re taking on an idea. Nobody questions why after Pearl Harbor we attacked Nazi Germany. It was because we were taking on a form of global fascism, we’re doing the same thing now.

NPR: Well, they did declare war on us, but…

FM: Well, so did Iraq._

Here

PD:

Nobody questions why after Pearl Harbor we attacked Nazi Germany. It was because we were taking on a form of global fascism, we�re doing the same thing now.

Actually, I think we attacked some country in North Africa first. Tunisia?

His thoughts sound admirable. I just regret the way they were dramatized, but then perhaps I'm just in the wrong generation. I've sort of been making the case on Winds that a comic (graphic novel) can't do justice to serious ideas. Some might consider this notion a bit pompous (and perhaps it is) but it occurs to me that if the intent is to lighten things up (i.e. comedy) while still getting something across, then cartoons and comics might be the perfect medium. This set of biblical motifs doesn't really do justice to the seriousness of the topics, but they do succeed in and odd, almost perverse, way. My favorites are from the Book of Judges: Jephtha Kills His Virgin Daughter and Jephtha Practices Genocide on the Ephraimites. God help those who can't speak with a lisp...

Maybe this is why South Park gets away with things that Ann Coulter wouldn't dream of trying...

I’m simply surprised that a writer with these points of view is getting a movie made in Hollywood. I get the feeling the NPR interviewer might have been thinking the same.

There are things that I think comics can do better than some other formats and for the purpose of mythologizing the Spartan 300 as proto-super-heroes, I think the format works. Your reaction suggests that it worked less well on film, but it also sounds like you don’t approve of the notion of mythologizing the Spartans to begin with.

A couple of graphic novels that Winds readers might like are “The Plot – The Secret Story of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” by Will Eisner and “Persepolis I and II, an autobiographical tale of Marjane Satrapi, an Iranian émigré.

Your reaction suggests that it worked less well on film, but it also sounds like you don’t approve of the notion of mythologizing the Spartans to begin with.

Well, I don't much like the idea of "mythologizing" since we've probably suffered enough from myth. But I wouldn't mind a realistic, informative, and factual dramatization of the Spartans (and others) at Thermopylae that was intended to inspire, but willing to tone down the triumphalism a little. In the long run I think such a depiction would be more convincing.

Of course the truth about Thermopylae, and similar events like the "Bloody Angle," is that they were a tedious and murderous/suicidal slog. So one has to take at least some liberties for the sake of drama. But the drama should attempt to at least pose the question: "What inspires people to do this sort of thing? What's the spirit of Flight '93?"