300 Turns a Real Battle Into a Work of Art
The costumes were wrong. Actual Spartan soldiers would have had armor rather than fighting bare-chested, but filmmakers wanted more visual appeal. All Spartans had plumes on their helmets, but filmmakers only gave King Leonidas a plume to differentiate him from the ‘regular’ soldiers. And Xerxes was not a nine feet tall cartoon monster. The Persians would not have used elephants and rhinoceros to attack the Spartans.
But the film is mainly criticized for implying that the Spartans fought alone. The Spartans had support from the Athenian city-state. The Athenian fleet engaged – and defeated – the Persian fleet in the straits outside of Thermopylae. The Athenians had actually engaged King Leonidas and the Spartans to help fight against the Persians, as Sparta was a militaristic city-state that trained for war from childhood. The Spartan efforts in the war served as a significant step in the unification of the Greek city-states.
