Word: herodotus
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...realm of cartoons / video games / comic books to which 90% of American movies aspire, the Miller graphic novel (with coloring by Lynn Varley) is a faithful, if jizzed-up, version of the 479 B.C. battle of Thermopylae. The action and much of the dialogue are taken from Herodotus' near-contemporary history...
...returned home to discover my family in a similar state of pique. My sister-in-law sat behind her laptop, sending off an e-mail petition against the film to half of Tehran, while my husband leafed through a book on the Achaemenid Empire, noting that Herodotus had estimated the Persian army at 120,000 men, not one million as the film claimed. The morning newspaper lay on the table with the headline "300 AGAINST 70 MILLION!" (the population of the country). It was echoed by the evening news: "Hollywood has opened a new front in the war against Iran...
...movie tells a history-textbook classic: the battle of Thermopylae. Nearly all representations of this story, from Roman theater to celluloid, are based on the writings of Herodotus, allegedly the “father of history.” Back in August 480 BC, his “Histories” tell us that King Xerxes of Persia filled the Hellenic peninsula with his barbaric hordes, ready to conquer and command Greece. Vastly outnumbered and representing the alliance of Greek city-states, 300 Spartans—the movie’s namesake—held their ground for three days...
...Herodotus cites the Persian despot in the midst of the battle, a line that appears also in the highly stylized screen version: “I have so many archers that their arrows will blot...
...Herodotus himself wrote his Histories “so that the great deeds of men may not be forgotten,” urging Greek unity when, after defeating the Persians, Sparta and Athens were at odds. But just as he is called “father of history,” Herodotus has also been called “father of lies.” Every audience must understand that each historian has an ideological agenda, and this film is no exception...