300 - Thermopylae and Rise of an Empire - Summary
Leonidas (Gerard Butler), the king of Sparta, leads the Greek coalition army against the Persian army. The Greek coalition army consists of 6,300 men from many Greek cities/states. Three hundred of these men are from Sparta, a Greek city/state that bases its society on protection from enemies by maintaining an organized standing army.
Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), king of the Persians and leader of a vast army, sends his men around the small pass at Thermopylae, not directly through it. Xerxes, the Great King, has an elite army named the “Immortals” because the army consists of exactly 10,000 men at all times. Demaratus warns Xerxes that the Spartan army would challenge and possibly defeat the Immortals but Xerxes does not believe that is possible.
Trained as a soldier, Leonidas was not born into royalty so he never thought he would be king. As the leader, Leonidas has to make a difficult decision. Armed with information from Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan), a Greek traitor, the Persians are en route to victory - and Leonidas knows it. Should he and his men finish the battle, in which they would surely die, or should they retreat? Would he return home to his wife Gorgo (Lena Heady), or would she never see him again?
Leonidas decides to make a courageous last stand at the city of Thermopylae. His Spartan army is faced with inevitable death at the hands of Xerxes’ vast armies. It is due to the bravery of these 300 that Athens and the rest of Greece continue to fight the Persians. The idea of democracy is allowed to grow through the suppression of the Persians.
In this story behind the movie, visit Thermopylae where the famous battle took place. See drawings of the narrow pass, as it existed in the fifth century B.C., and hear the story from the chronicles of Herodotus. Visit Marathon, where a small number of Greeks defeated the Persians in the summer of 490 B.C., and virtually operate a Greek ship of war - the trireme - as it attempts to ram its opponents.