I have a love-hate relationship with historical movies. I don’t expect them to be documentaries, and if they get someone interested in a person or event or time in history, terrific. (One of my issues with Reign is that it references nothing historically important and puts most of the focus on utterly fictional issues. It’s not going to inspire anyone to learn more of Mary Queen of Scots.)
Generally speaking, the more a movie claims to be historically accurate, the harder I judge.
Thus, when King Arthur came out in 2004, I knew I was going to witness something terrible, since they were marketing it as marketed as “The Untold True Story That Inspired the Legend.” Really, the true story about a bunch of people only written about centuries later and who supposedly hung out with a wizard? In a movie whose poster features Keira Knightley in a leather bikini?
I was nearly out of my chair laughing before the end of opening credits. I couldn’t get past the initial voice-over exposition. No. Just…no.
Also, I’m generally fine with changes in details so long as the larger themes remains intact. (I apply a similar logic to comic book movies.) There is so little known of William Wallace, for example, that Braveheart had to be inventive. That’s doesn’t, however, mean they can teleport a three-year-old princess to England, make her an adult and send her off to be a diplomat.
300 and 300: Rise of an Empire
That said, I’m really a pretty big fan of 300 as fun entertainment. They make zero attempt to portray their tale as historical. Quite the opposite, by the time the monsters start showing up it should be clear this is fantasy. Nevertheless, it gives you the general impression of what happened at Thermopylae: several thousand Greeks holding off a hundred-thousand Persians.
300: Rise of an Empire, however, left me more ambivalent.
As every critic has stated, 300: Rise not as good as 300. There’s too much voice-over narrative that contributes nothing. The characters are even more one-dimensional than in 300. I’m pretty sure several of the major characters are never mentioned by name; I had to look them up on IMDB.
It’s title makes no sense. Persia is already an empire, and Greece never has an empire, so I’m not sure who is supposed to be rising. I’m not sure why Xerxes is running around in gold underwear either, so maybe I’m thinking too hard.
Still, it’s fun. It’s just not stellar.
(c) Warner Bros.
Artemisia I
When I originally saw the trailer, I mentally facepalmed. No matter how much leeway I give for fantastical retelling, a female commander just makes no sense.
So I looked her up.
And she’s real.
She’s queen of Halicarnassus, a city within the borders of the Persian Empire. According to Herodotus, who provides most of the information we have on her, she actually warned Xerxes not to attack by sea at all. Since the Greeks were primarily naval fighters, she suggested just overrunning them by land. Nevertheless, she commanded several ships when Xerxes ordered the fleet to battle.
What she did not do:
- Die at Salamis. She returned to Persia and continued to be in Xerxes’ favor.
- Murder Xerxes’ advisers.
- Become a child sex slave rescued by a Persian. Her father was the king of Halicarnassus.
But still….damn. I wish there was more information available about her because, seriously, female naval commander in 480 BCE.
Themistocles
There are lots of people in history that I admire, or identify with, or am fascinated by, but I might just be a Themistocles fan girl. And, seriously, when are you ever going to hear that phrase again?
Themistocles was a very clever man. After Marathon, he encouraged Athens to spend the wealth from a newly found silver mine on a navy rather than dividing the wealth among citizens, as was customary. He was confident Persia would be coming back, even though others seriously doubted. Greece won Salamis because they had a fleet of damn good ships.
…and because Themistocles was a sneaky bastard.
And the movie kind of forgot that. They left out the coolest part about Themistocles.
Themistocles let Persia know the sorry state of the Greek navy and how it was retreating to Salamis. In truth, the Greeks had arranged an ambush at Salamis, taking advantage of its narrow straits.
I figured he was going to play that card after banging Artemisia in one of the least necessary sex-scenes ever. (Even her guards seemed to find it implausible.) When that didn’t happen, I figured they would highlight that he had dropped word of Greece’s weakness in front of the hunchback who then ran back to Xerxes. But I doubt viewers got that impression.
Instead, a bunch of extra ships just show up and kick Persia’s butt.
As an Aside: Years after Salamis, the Athenians exiled Themistocles over a political dispute. Know where he went? Persia. He entered the service of Artaxerxes, Xerxes’s successor, and lived comfortably for the rest of his life. According to Plutarch, the Persian king exclaimed, “I have Themistocles the Athenian!” Basically, he took it as a compliment that the Greek had turned to him.
Freedom!
Damn near every historical epic has a freedom speech, and this time Themistocles is practically channeling Mel Gibson’s William Wallace.
Historical people do not view freedom the same way we do. Just because Athens was democratic (and even that was only among landowning citizens in a place where citizenship was a luxury), does not mean they had any sense of equality. One-third of Athen’s population was enslaved, for example. They had some of the lowest opinions of women in the Western world. Infanticide was legal and socially acceptable.
And there was absolutely, positively, not a concept of a united Greece. Each city-state was fiercely independent, and only a portion of them allied with Athens against the Persians. The participating city-states were, however, all in on the plan. They didn’t magically show up at Salamis in Themistocles’s darkest hour and rally to the banner of Greek freedom.
Being Clever: Naked Guys
There’s lots of complaints and jokes about the state of undress of most characters in 300 and 300:Rise. Certainly, the Greeks did not actually go into battle with nothing but a loincloth and cape. They had armor. However, Greek art depicted heroes as naked, including in battle scenes. Greek values were all about perfection, and a perfectly formed body was one way of reflecting other forms of perfection.
(c) Warner Bros.
But they weren’t going to make a movie about hundreds of totally naked guys. Thus: leather panties.
You might notice the Persian soldiers were in more appropriate states of dress, except for Xerxes. They weren’t the heroes.
Galley Rowers
Something else they got right: the rowers. There are several shots of whipped rowers chained to their oars. The editing is confusing (one of my complaints throughout the movie), and at first I thought that was supposed to be the Greek fleet, which is 100% wrong. However, there’s a couple of shots clearly of the Greek ships which are focused on the hands of the rowers which are clearly unchained.
Greek rowers weren’t slaves. Every Greek in combat was there willingly.
Typically, warriors were the well-to-do, since they had the means to procure equipment. Most places did not have professional armies. Athens (and other cities) was wealthy enough that a sizable number of people could afford armor, but there were still large numbers of poorer citizens.
In Greece, to not be interested in the welfare of the city was the mark of a very low character. So those who could not afford personal equipment voluntarily manned the oars of triremes, the best damn ships on the Mediterranean.
Places of Note: Persepolis
The city which Xerxes overlooks is very much modeled on Persepolis, the capital of Persia. It really was a magnificent place, although presumably it did not have the imperial diving tower that Xerxes seems to be standing on.
The Hellespont
Early in the movie you see Xerxes’ army traveling on what looks like a bridge. You might have noticed that the bridge is balanced on boats: Xerxes built a pontoon bridge across the Hellespont (the strait between the Aegean Sea and the Sea of Marmara) to move his army from Asia Minor into Europe.
Burning of Athens
Athens absolutely burned to the ground during the Persian Wars. It didn’t, however, look like this:
That high hill on the left is the acropolis, and the largest building is the Parthenon, the temple to Athena. The problem is the Parthenon wasn’t built until after Athens was burned.
And the 100 foot tall statue in front of it? Not a clue.
Those aren’t the bits that get me. The FX guys created a Athens built very vaguely on the idea of what Greek things looked like, which still makes it way more authentic than their Xerxes.
Except that building in the middle. It’s the Pantheon.
From Rome.
Built 500 years later.
The circular portion is capped with the largest dome (which weren’t even known to the Greeks) ever built until the 20th century. It represents the pinnacle of Roman engineering, and it is absolutely unique.
And it’s sitting in Athens.
What Empire?
I still don’t understand the title. Persia has been a powerful empire for decades by the time of Thermopylae and Salamis. And Greece never has an empire. Athens gains sizable influence over many of the city-states which join what’s known as the Delian League, but that’s still just a handful of cities scattered over a very small area of land.
And since the movie ends mid-battle, they don’t even mention the Delian League. So, seriously, what empire is rising? I don’t understand.
I enjoyed your analysis of the movie and I agree that it is, as I like to call “edutainment”, there are kernels of truth to the movie and, like you, I feel that hopefully it will lead people to learning about the REAL History. Much the way Braveheart did for me. I fell in love with History after that movie, even after I learned of all it inaccuracies. Also, I have a few observations of my own to add to yours.
First, your comment “Greece never has an empire.” Is NOT entirely correct. Under Alexander The Great, the “Greeks” were united and he did build an empire on the ruins of The Persian Empire all the way to modern day India. I think that is what Hollywood is trying to assert but then again I maybe giving them WAY too much credit for research, especially now that the mistake of “Noah” has come to theaters.
Second, the crossing of the Hellespont was one of the most treacherous portions of Xerxes invasion. In fact, he would send troops out into the water, after his army finally crossed it, with sticks to ‘whip’ the Hellespont for being so unruly! I caught that when I saw the movie and laughed.
Finally, I was not surprised by Artemisa I. She was a Greek because the term “Greek” was very wide spread and encompassed more than just the city states on the mainland which most people consider, “Greece.” Actually, there were “Greek” city states all on and along the Ionian Peninsula, modern day Turkey, and they ‘rebelled’ against Persian rule and Greece, mainly Athens, sent money AND troops to help the rebellion. It is one thing to send money, to help orphans, starving people and other collateral damage that comes with war and COMPLETELY another thing to send troops. That is considered a declaration of war, even today and that is why UN troops don’t do much except stand there on their ‘peacekeeping’ missions, kind of like they did in Rwanda in 1994 and allowed all that mess to happen, but anyway. The troops that Athens sent failed to win the independence for those ‘Greek’ city-states in Ionia and thus really ticked Xerxes off. Hence the reason he wanted to punish Athens. He really had no quarrel with Sparta but they were basically told by Xerxes to ‘stay home’ and that ticked The Spartans off, you tell Spartans, i.e. The Chuck Norris’ of their era, what to do, you listen to them, or so they believed!
Militarily, Xerxes campaign was a success. He wanted to burn Athens to the ground and he did. He then had to return to Persia because of unrest there and he left several thousand troops in Athens as a rear guard. Here is where The Battle of Plataea comes in and the ‘unified’ Greeks dealt the ‘final’ blow to The Persians, even though Xerxes could have cared less. At the end of the day, Xerxes had his vengeance and “The Greeks” had theirs, so everybody is happy!
I disagree on one point. Alexander the Great was Macedonian, not Greek. His father conquered the Greeks. His time period is called Hellenistic (Greek-like) rather than Hellenic (Greek). He certainly spread Greek culture all over the place, but Alexander’s empire was not a Greek success.
Perhaps more important here it that doesn’t happen for another 150 years. There is no empire rising at the end of this movie, nor in any reasonable time afterward.
There appears to be a constant debate about Macedon and was it or was it not “Greek.” I suppose we could itemize it down to it finest point and have a ‘nerd fight’, if needed but I say let’s just call it ‘nuance’ and be done with it because we agree on many other issues and in a world where one minute detail of an issue, much like Dr. Seuss’ Butter Battle Book, divides countries, groups and even families, let’s not focus on where we differ but where we agree.
I agree that the there is no empire ‘rising’ at the end of this movie which makes the title completely erroneous! A better title might have been, “300: A Blood Debt” or “300: Vengence” or even “300: The Blood of an Empire” All of those would have worked, historically at least because both sides felt they had been wronged in some way and were out for Justice. Maybe that is another one! “300: Bloody Justice” Nah, sounds too much like a spaghetti western, not that there is anything wrong with those, just not in Ancient Greece.