Posted on 03/21/2007 5:00:39 AM PDT by IrishMike
I’ve never been in therapy, but I can’t imagine anything could be more cathartic than watching King Leonidas and his mighty band of Spartans brutally massacre the thousands of jihadis that descended on them at the epic Battle of Thermopylae in the blockbuster hit 300.
Did I say jihadis? I meant Persians. Sorry, about that. The two are easily confusedd in light of current events. While watching 300 it’s tempting to mentally substitute the freedom-loving Spartans for dedicated U.S. soldiers and swap the occultist Persians for Islamic insurgents lusting to cash in their martyrdom for 72 virgins.
Leonidas’s men are far outnumbered, but the Spartans butcher the Persian hordes that come after them one by one. The Persians cover their faces and attack the Spartans and only small slits of their eyes show, which makes the Persians look very much like contemporary terrorists in ski masks. The mystical bombs the Persians throw at the Spartans all too well resemble the IED’s terrorists have used to take pieces from our soldiers.
That view may not be politically correct, but it’s exactly why the movie is such a therapeutic pleasure to watch. That is, as long as you aren’t New York Times film critic A.O. Scott. He said, “300 is about as violent as Apocalypto and twice as stupid.”
Unsurprisingly, millions of war weary Americans ignored Scott’s negative review and marched to theaters to cheer the Spartans on to glory on 300.
300’s opening day success is similar to that of Passion of the Christ, which was equally mystifying to the mainstream media. The Spartan thriller earned $70.8 million on its opening weekend, making it the third most profitable R-rated movie opening in movie history. Passion of Christ has had the second most profitable opening.
(Excerpt) Read more at humanevents.com ...
I'd love to see them do Xenophon's The March Up Country next....
Bump!
come one GWB, learn something from the ratings!!!!! the persians have been the same for thousands of years. there is nothing better than humbling these barbarians, and they require some 'humbling' about now.
Yes but the Spartans were war criminals just like Bushitler and Helliburton, and they didn't follow the rules of engagement, and they made a lot of Persians' mother cry and ... (sorry, just trying my hand at sounding like a Democrat)
Amen to that!
Check out this historical fiction:
http://www.amazon.com/Ten-Thousand-Novel-Ancient-Greece/dp/0312980329/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-7624035-9752969?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1174484061&sr=1-1
Only if you are ignorant.
I haven't seen the movie, but, from what I've heard, one can appreciate the symbolism, but, it is not history.
The Persians were attacking the Athenians in revenge for the Athenian's Ionian allies burning a religious shrine.
Persia was the free-est empire to date, and it's domain stretched from Turkey to India. Its expansion freed middle eastern people from the yoke of the Babylonians and Assyrians. With the exception of the Purim episode, Jews never had it so good until modern America.
Persians were not Islamic fundamentalists, they were Zoroastrian, and their subject peoples were free to practice their own religions. They were not trying to impose their religion and morality on the Greeks.
The Spartans were not free, and not fighting for freedom. They were a master race lording it over the lesser peoples.
It was the Athenian Navy that prevented the Persians from flanking the Spartans sooner.
The 300 Spartans were helped by about 8,000 auxiliaries.
The battle was fought to prevent the burning and sacking of Athens. Athens was sacked and burned anyway, and the Parthenon was burned in revenge for the burning of the shrine in Lydia.
The movie, so I've heard, depicts the Persians as decedent effeminates, probably pederasts. It was the Spartans who required their hoplites to practice homosexuality.
The Spartans taught their hoplites to be get comfortable by lining up slaves, and making them hack them to death, until they could do it with no reservations.
Cheering for one side of the other in historical wars, is intellectually risky, especially when based on modern morality.
OK. Call me a spoilsport, if you wish.
Actually the Spartans were criminals - their right of passage had each Spartan male killing in secret (not to be caught) a Helot. Murdering the Helot was not the crime but getting caught was the crime because it showed the Spartan was not stealthy. Not to mention they were taught to steal as well.
The Spartans always are admired by historians looking back but the true stars and heroes of Greece were and have always been Athens. They Athenians were just as heroic as the Spartans and did not have to create an oppressive system like the Spartans to be as heroic in combat.
Ok.
As far as I'm concerned it pissed-off the Iranians. And that's all that counts.
Is that why God declared that Cyrus the Great - the Persian king of kings - was his Christ?
"I am YHWH, who made all things, . . . 28 who says of Cyrus, 'He is my shepherd, he shall carry out all my plans.'" 1 Thus says YHWH to his anointed one, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have grasped to subjugate nations before him, . . . 5 'I am YHWH, there is no other. Except for me there is no god. I equip you, though you do not know me.'" (44:24, 28; 45:1, 5)
Geez,
I suggest you all read Victor Davis Hanson before you start writing this stuff. The Persian empire was an empire with two classes slave and elite. No one was free but the king, who could kill you at any time. Their armies were made up at mercenaries and slaves. Their economic system was designed to keep money in the elite cliques. Persia was not an oasis of sophistication and tolerance in a barbaric world unless you were one of the elite. That they allowed a certain amount of freedom in certain ways was to their credit, but they were not as free as the Greek City States, who invented the concept of free citizens voting for their rights and the rule of law that protected those rights. And it started the fight in Greece when it decided to invade and invest the land.
The Greeks were indeed free city states, even the Spartans. The Spartans were a cruel people, but women had more rights in Sparta than at any time until present day America. Women could vote, own property, had the same divorce rights as man and were trained as soldiers. This freedom meant that people who owned land could vote and that free citizens manned the armies of the Greeks. That's why they won.
The fight at the Hot Gates allow the Greeks to reassemble and fight at Salamis (Athens had been sacked by this time and the Athenian populations was on various islands near Salamis)and again at Plataea. It is also true that Persian kings rarely put themselves in harms way in battle,(Xerxes watched both the Hot Gates Battle and the disaster at Salamis from a throne perched on a hill) but leaders and kings and consuls and elites did fight for the Greek City States.
And that differs from Leonidas' Sparta how? Did Prof. Hanson skip over the Spartan Helots?
Sparta sucked! Athens ruled!!
so there was an exception...
doesn't cancel the fact they were mostly all barbarians.
...you and I are in the same boat, seemingly...acknowledging the shortcomings of Greek translations, when the original tongue needs to speak...I wish to read the New Testament in the original Koine, but completely lack the ability to do anything more than take small, faltering steps, using internet Bible sites...the prospect may require more years than I have left...
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