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The movie was done in Montreal and they hired all the re-enactors, martial arts specialists and stunts artists they could find on the persian side, and some beefcake from the local gyms on the greek side. A couple of my friends played in the movie (on the persian side :beam: ) and they explain the spartian work-out in one word.Quote:
Originally Posted by delablake
airbrush
:laugh4:
Quote:
Originally Posted by dominique
lol
1000-1800 Spartans defeated by 300 gay pansies from Thebes:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tegyra
Spartans are overrated
Eh, the Sacred Band were the Thebans' crack shock unit. Honi soit qui mal y pense.
...although by what I've read of it, the Spartans also made a pretty serious tactical misjudgement there. They apparently thought the approaching Theban cavalry was intending to flee and opened a corridor through their ranks for them to pass through (since compared to the Sacred Band the horsemen were small fry, and no point fighting them to the death if they were going to leave) - but the Thebans had no such plans and instead cheerfully started savaging the insides and rear of the Spartan phalanx, while the Sacred Band charged right into the still-open corridor.
:whip:
Endgame, Spartan kebab.
Indeed. Spartans only managed to kill so many people in the Thermopylae because it was an elite unit vs. a lot of low quality Persian troops, mind you. And they got their ass kicked when they faced other serious greek elites like the Theban band. Even the Athenians gave them a challenge on the field.Quote:
Originally Posted by Intranetusa
The Thebans charged 50 ranks deep, or their abouts, the Spartan line was apparently 12 ranks. In any case the Spartans only suffered against the Athenians when they stopped wearing armour and took to silly felt caps instead. In 470 though they were still some of the best soldiers in the world.
When did the Spartans start wearing felt caps?
They wore helmet the same shape as those caps, but I wasn't aware of them abandoning helmets completely..
Speaking of Leuctra - how many of the Spartan troops were actually Spartan?
They had a roughly ten thousand strong phalanx, but less than half of that would have been actual Spartans. (they still lost, obviously - I'd say by this point the Sacred Band would have been on a similar level to Spartans, combat-wise).
Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
You took the whole film WAY too literally. The movie is about how the Spartans would tell thier story of the battle and to be honest when you look at it that way, it was a great movie. Yes there were no monsters or mutants IRL and Xerxes wasn't a giant shaven gay guy covered in gold like that but it is how the Greeks would of seen the Persians, the Emortals were meant to look scary because thats how the Greeks thought of them, they were completely covered in cloth with a thin black veil across their faces with covered heads which made it look like they had no faces, when one died another came up out of nowhere and to the superstitious Greeks they were like demons. I could go on forever like this but the simple fact is that it never pretended to be historically accurate, it is a movie based on a comic book which also never claims to be historical, the only thing they claim it to be is how the Spartans would of told their story and to me the movie does a fantastic job of that. This movie is not in the same league as Braveheart, The Patriot or Gladiator because they actually attemtped to be accurate and therefore that is what they should be judged on.
Long story short, you don't play a racing game and get upset because there aren't any planes in it.
Spartans should have stuck to the Corinthian helmet; at least it looked cool, but they wanted some ridiculous cone-shaped, no-cheekguard weirdness instead :wall:Quote:
Originally Posted by Philipvs Vallindervs Calicvla
They were not very fashionable i guess :egypt:
Braveheart attempting to be accurate?Quote:
This movie is not in the same league as Braveheart, The Patriot or Gladiator because they actually attemtped to be accurate and therefore that is what they should be judged on.
What? C'mon it was medival scotland not roman era pictland. I makes the scots look like barbarians.
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Originally Posted by alatar
Attempted to be accurate, i didn't say they actually managed to pull it off. :laugh4: That is my point though, they tried to make it accurate and messed it up royally and therefore should be judged on what they tried to do but 300 didn't attempt or even claim to be accurate, it is the battle of thermopylae as told by the Spartans and in that respect i think they did a great job. It also looked great and personally i thought it was a fantastic film.
Edit: I hated Braveheart too, i fell asleep 3/4 the way through it to be honest and the same goes with the other movies i mentioned. :laugh4:
Nevertheless, it's claimed that a lot of pre-viking age Scandinavians used a wedge-like formation for their infantry in battle...Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
I haven't seen it, so I wonder what is this repeated reference to mutants about?Quote:
Originally Posted by Glenn
Sadly, I couldn't find the mutant in this video, but I'll post it anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pi2t58CRmbU
There are some weird creatures and mutated-liked humans in the Persian army, some people take them way too literally/seriously.Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodion Romanovich
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rodion Romanovich
Indeed it was used by quite a few people, the Romans called it the pigs/boars head i think. It was dangerous for the blokes up front but if used by a well trained army it can be deadly and very effective. There were calls for it to be put into EB/RTR but the wedge formation itself in RTW is bugged and when used by the infantry it seemed to be even worse (in the game engine) but it was an effective tactic IRL.
lol! I watched the trailer too now. After seeing both, I'm glad I never rented this thing :yes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Thaatu
man wtf is going on with u fellas :dizzy2: ???????????????
300 is NOT a history movie its a TESTOSTERONE MOVIE :2thumbsup: (like the 1776 clip)
And news flash: EVERYONE KNOWS THIS!
....and u know what else: This movie inspired INTEREST in Greece and Sparta among a LOT of my friends. Now all of them know what really happened. :yes:
Spartans gets pwned some more: ~12,000 Spartans + Spartan allies gets owned by the numerically inferior (8500) Thebans...again
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Leuctra
And once again, I'll bring up the matters of the actual numbers of Spartans (actually, I don't know the numbers, but I do know it'll have been less than half their force).
And Leuctra is famous for a reason. Not just the Spartans getting beaten, but also the oblique advance with the phalanx, as well as the super-deep phalanx.
There were only about 5000 Spartans at Plataea, for god's sake.
Not to take anything away from Epominondas or Pelopidas of course, Leuctra is still an excellent achievement.Quote:
In the late 5th and early 4th centuries BC, the Spartiate class gradually declined, along with Spartan military prowess. There were several reasons for this decline. First was attrition through the increasingly frequent wars that Sparta found itself embroiled in from the mid 5th century on. Since Spartiates were required to marry late, birth rates were low, and it was difficult to replace losses from the class. To exacerbate this problem, it was possible to be demoted from Spartiate status for a number of reasons; cowardice in battle was a common one, as was inability to pay for membership in the common mess. Inability to pay became an increasingly severe problem as commercial activity began to develop in Sparta, since some Spartiates would sell the land from which they were supposed to draw their earnings. Since the constitution included no provisions for promotion to Spartiate status, the number of Spartiates gradually dwindled as the classical period wore on.
By the mid 4th century BC, the number of Spartiates had been critically reduced, although Sparta continued to hold sway over much of Greece. Finally, at Leuctra in 371 BC, a Theban army decisively defeated a Spartan force, killing 400 Spartiates and breaking the back of Spartan military power. In 370 BC, Messenia was liberated by a Theban army, destroying the basis of the Spartan social system. The Spartan state never recovered its former power, and the Spartan army, by the later 3rd century, was not particularly superior to other hoplite armies in Greece.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Intranetusa
If you are going to trump the Spartans losing atleast post the real numbers. Yes they lost but with the declining numbers in actual Spartans in general and the fact that most of their numbers were made up with allies also helped in their defeat, as soon as the Spartans got smashed out of the way the rest of the line broke without so much as a wimper. Also as posted already they were facing a stronger Theban force on their flank, it wasn't that they were beaten by skill as much as it was by sheer weight of numbers.
I'm not taking away from their victory at all but if you don't give all the facts then you aren't being faithful to history.
Apologists. The Spartans were declining in numbers because their whole quasi-fascist system was based on nasty asshattery that wasn't really sustainable on the long term and in the face of accumulating casualties.
Moreover, the deep Theban assault column actually had relatively little effect by itself - too deep formations are notorious for basically wasting fighting manpower, since most of the guys will never even see the enemy and that many ranks simply cannot "push" to any effect. Its main benefit would have been psychological, although given the oblique advance tactice the Thebans were using there may also have been involved an idea of using the rear ranks to start rolling up the flank of the remaining Spartan line while the front ranks chased after the defeated segment.
And as the Theban column was aiming right at the most elite part of the Spartan force - where the King, and duly most of the best troops, were - it's more or less a safe bet the Spartans facing them weren't excessively overawed by mere depth of ranks.
The really decisive thing was that the Theban horse easily saw off their Spartan colleagues (a rather uneven match, as the Thebans were among the best cavalrymen in Greece after the Thessalians - and the Spartans the worst) and drove them directly into the Spartan infantry phalanx; having to make room for the fleeing horsemen, with the pursuing Theban cavalry only adding to the mayhem (they apparently chased the Spartan horse right through the surprised phalanx), their lines were naturally thrown to chaos. And while the Lacedaimonians were still trying to get their rank and file back into combat order, the Theban infantry assault column spearheaded by the crack Sacred Band rolled right into their stricken phalanx...
Pretty much a done deal at that point, given the dynamics of heavy-infantry combat in general and hoplite warfare in particular. And with the destruction of the best part of the Spartan force there and then (to add insult to injury some of the Theban horse returned to inflict further mayhem...) and the fall of their king, the rest of the army was duly grossly demoralized.
The cuneus was normally in fact an assault column by what I've read of it. Although they were sometimes formed up side-by-side in a "stepped" pattern, creating a large-scale "blunt wedge" assault formation.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Internet
There was also apparently a genuine blunt-wedge formation, with a few guys in the front row and successively wider ranks behind them. Useful enough for exploiting a weak spot in enemy line, focusing missile fire and attacking through narrow spaces. The Vikings used a similar formation thay called Svinfylkning, "Swine Array", apparently usually with two men in the front rank, three behind them etc. - but then they tended to have rather smaller armies than the Romans as well...
An actualy sharp-tipped triangle, however, isn't a good idea for infantry; more likely than not it'll just get the somewhat isolated point man killed, as he'll be subjected to the attentions of some two-three foemen... It works for cavalry mind you, but horse plays with different rules than foot anyway.
For hoplites, whose whole fighting technique and equipement kit is oriented for combat as a solid line where the large shield also protects the next guy, such formations would appear quite pointless however. The hoplite was optimized for combat in solid massed successive lines and mutual support, and a wedge formation would seem to toss away most of the central points of the whole technique.
Only 750 Spartiates were present at Leuctra, 440 of wich got killed.
Yup. You can put a bucket under that and have a homemade chemical factory.Quote:
Originally Posted by NeoSpartan
Quote:
Originally Posted by blank
I'm currently reading Soldiers and Ghosts and in it, Lendon states that the reason for the switch was that the Spartans were aspiring to Homeric ideals of honor and bravery. The Corinthian helmet covered too much of the face and was seen to them as hiding if the soldier was scared. The Pylos helmet let everyone see that the Spartan had no fear on his face...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Watchman
To be honest i doubt we'll really know if it was effective or not for hoplites to use such a formation (i'd like to see some reinactors have a go actually) but i agree that it probably wasn't an effective tactic for a group of hoplites. I also agree with the wedge description too, i guess i should of made it more clear what i thought the wedge would look like instead of just saying the blokes up front. :laugh4:
In all seriousness though, it is a great film for getting people intrested in ancient Greece but no one should ever use it to teach a class. :beam:
Or they were simply following the national trend in lightening equipment..Quote:
Originally Posted by mcantu
going from bronze muscle cuirass to simply robes, from the corinthian helmet to the Pilos helmet, etc.
Watchman - I should have made clear I wasn't supporting the fanboy "Spartans are t3h r0><0r" arguement.
I'm fully aware their decline was almost entirely due to the fundamental flaws in their government and society (the rest of it was due to the quality of their opponents :smash: ). I was simply pointing out it wasn't a case of 8000 Thebans beat 12000 Spartans.
The fact is, anyone could have seen Sparta's downfall coming. First of all, it's obvious achieving a lasting hegemony wasn't possible under the way Greece was run - it took a foreign invader (Philip) to achieve that, and even then there were still revolts (in fact, it was still more a coalition of cities rather than a unified nation).
The other city-states could never tolerate Sparta's supremacy (nor could the Persian kings).
Secondly, as mentioned, Sparta's strength was also her weakness - their system was so focused on producing soldiers that it didn't produce anything else. The whole class of Spartiate was based on being able to afford the schooling and training (not to mention the equipment). The fact is Spartans could only own land, not work it.
Also, their 'code' (I can't think of another word..) only made provisions for demotion from Spartiate status, not promotion to it.
It is therefore logical the numbers of Spartans would go down as time progressed (unlike Athens, or even more tellingly, Rome - where citizen requirements became looser, leading to a larger, stronger military force).
The rise of cavalry is similar to the lightening of equipment - tactics, manouvres and mobility were becoming more important in Greek warfare. This culminated (in my opinion) in Alexandrian warfare (yes, I know his father was instrumental, but Philipian doesn't sound as good).
.Quote:
In all seriousness though, it is a great film for getting people intrested in ancient Greece but no one should ever use it to teach a class
Except when discussing propaganda, political correctness, and testosterone movies :laugh4:
Testosterone movie for me is to see a historically accurate clash between two gigantic armies marching in correct formation with correct equipment without breaking ranks to go for individual combat, then a few well done cavalry charges, and nice, epic music in the background!Quote:
Originally Posted by NeoSpartan
If Hollywood and their non-literal take on history and the current state of politics and our world has teenagers sniggering and talking about how the Athenians, Thebians, Spartans and Persians got 'owned', or 'pwned' and how the hoplites look so much more awesome in the more classical helmets - then I don't applaud it at all, and I think it defaces history and it's finest wars.
As for a comment I can't help but make;
I have every right to play a racing game and get upset there were no planes in it, if it was a race around the world in 80 days.
And if a movie that purports to portray a famous incident of hoplite warfare doesn't, and instead goes "totally awesome dude" wire-fu with Martians, I think discerning customers have the right to be slightly irritated.
Personally, I hate stupid audience-pandering crap on general principles anyway.
It's not meant to be a historical movie any more than Lord of the Rings was. Despite the events portrayed in the movie, it's fantasy, myth, and doesn't pretend to be anything else. It doesn't 'deface' history, because it doesn't attempt to portray history with any accuracy. Any ignorance from the audience is no fault of the author.
On another note, do you hate, say, The Iliad as you hate 300? It, too, was based on a (supposedly) true event, and it, too was riddled with myth. And yet it is considered a classic. Or perhaps it's the emphasis on violence, sex, and other nasty things that assaults your superior intellect? Personally, I like portrayals of gratuitous violence. mutants r cool2.
You might not like 300. May just not be your thing. But there is certainly no reason to get all indignant about it.