[Colin Peddie]

Hello, i was watching the movie " 300" where the Spartans with 300 men took on the might of King Xerxes persian army, but were eventually killed by a volley of arrows, it is based on fact but how they died is a myth because you cannot pierce any target by firing an arrow into the air expecting it gather enough momentum while descending to pierce its target, or do you know different?

[Dan Howard]

Depending on the arrow and the bow and the distance, an arrow loses anywhere from 25% to 50% of its initial energy when it is shot in a volley.

The movie 300 is based on a comic and was never meant to be historically accurate. As a cinematic rendition of the comic it was pretty well done but it had little in common with the historical events in question.

[Mikko Kuusirati]

Yeah, 300 is a movie based on a graphic novel based on myth based on legend based on history based on factual events of which not all that much is really known, and most of what we know is more or less debatable. There are some kernels of truth left in there somewhere, but they're buried pretty deep under multiple layers of fanciful embellishments accumulated over thousands of years.

Impressive visuals, though.

[Benjamin H. Abbott]

Sufficiently heavy arrows could at least theoretically kill through some armor at maximum range (shot at a 45-degree angle). The heaviest arrow in The Great Warbow tests had 80-90 J of kinetic energy at maximum range if I remember correctly.

[Sam Barris]

The account of Herodotus claims that, after Leonidas' fall, the surviving Spartans withdrew to a defensible location and formed ranks to protect his body until the Persians overwhelmed them with missiles. Now, as historical accounts go, Herodotus was certainly prone to more than a little bit of poetic license, but surely the far better accounts of battles like Agincourt show that volleys of arrows can be effective even against armored men. And don't forget that the Spartan equipment at that point in the game would have been in a pretty poor state.

Maybe you're referring to the specific angle the Persians in the movie 300 fired their volleys, rather than making a comment about archery in general. If so, disregard the above. I think I repressed most of my memories of that movie because it was pretty much just unbelievably terrible.

[Philip Dyer]

[John Hardy]

[Michael Wiethop]

I wonder--how would Herodotus have known what the Spartan last stand at Thermopylae was like if none of the Greeks present at that final stage of the battle survived? I know most of the contingents of non-Spartans were said to have gone home before then, as had two wounded Spartans, but the rest were killed there, weren't they? Perhaps he had Persian and allied sources?

[Andrew Gill]