I did some more reading, and a naval engagement did occur during Thermopylae (I'm going to be lazy about sources).

The Battle of Artemesium, the navel engagement concurrent with Thermopylae, resulted in heavy Greek naval losses. As was the case in the land engagement, it also resulted in disproportionate Persian naval casualties. The previously mentioned storm made a mess of Persian plans and allowed the Greek navy to escape encirclement.

Really take as a whole, the Persians could afford the casualties they took to drive the Greeks out of both positions, and they won both engagements. The Greeks were close to the brink. They were struggling to agree on tactics, many Greek cities had joined the Persians, and the rest probably should have lost the war after Thrermopulae and Artemesium. Its very interesting that everyone gives Thermopylae so much attention and it is perceived as a Greek victory in popular culture. At this point, without the Greek victory at Salamis I think the Greek stand in the pass would be little more than a footnote in the Persian conquest of Greece.

So perhaps this movie, with all it warts, helped me learn something.

It must have been a sucessful movie since they already have gear from the movie. Now my dream can come true and I can actually be a spartan.

http://www.mwart.com/search.asp?search_type=A...=movie+300

p.s. 300 is the best movie ever. Pumps you Up!!!!!!

Michael,
if your looking for footwear to help your spartan dream come true, go to : cuirfl.com The FL in the name's site is Francois Lapointe, the cobbler who made the sandals and footwear for the movie. He's been doing work for the local reenactment and fantasy scene for the last 10 years and was really happy to get the work for the 300. He has a tendency to make his boots more adapted to modern wear and tear as the local role playing groups have a tendency to use wooded lots where roots and general terrain hazards require better soles, so the historical reenactment purist would need to take that into account if ordering off the rack, as opposed to a custom order.
Have fun getting your kit together.
JCH

Well, I finally got down to Chania last weekend and saw the movie. The theater was almost empty, which I thought was very strange for it being a Saturday night in downtown Chania on only the second weekend of the movie’s run here. The opening weekend, you couldn’t even get near a theater with the lines. I guess the Greeks didn’t like it as much as I thought they would. And then the movie came on and I understood why. Not only are the Persians vilified to a level that goes far beyond the boundaries of comedic satire, but all non-Spartan Greeks were as well! If you weren’t a Spartan, be you Hellene or barbarian, you were a coward, a traitor or a mutant. Or all three simultaneously. There were no other choices. The blatant misrepresentation of everything that movie touched upon, from the Oracle at Delphi to saber-tooth wolves with glowing red eyes to faux-Samurai orc hordes, was borderline criminal. But we’ve been over that ground already so I’ll shut up about it.

I also figured out why we never managed to make an actual discussion about weapons and armor out of this thread, a question that had confused me, considering the crowd here; namely, that the Spartans didn’t wear any! It’s hard to talk about the representation of armor when everyone is running around naked except for little Fruit of the Anvil brand leather He-Man briefs, or the other Greeks with their leather gimp halters. No subliminal imagery here, no sir. The helmets I thought were ugly and modern, almost like a 1940s concept of what a Greek helmet should look like. The solid bronze shields I found amusing. I think a hoplon made of solid bronze would either be so thin as to be useless or too heavy to be lifted. And the lambda also looked like it came from the same kind of neo-industrialist school of art as the helmets. On the positive side, one or two of the troop formations looked at least partially legitimate, like the wedge formation that the Spartans use against the Persian cavalry. These moments were few, though.

I did actually enjoy the movie, once I made a conscious decision to turn of my brain and just revel in the uber-pwnage. Some of the visuals were absolutely stunning, like the scene from underwater when the Persian triremes were sinking and flotsam and drowned bodies were spinning suspended in the currents. Just chilling. The music was a perfect compliment; eerie and violent at the same time. A screech more than a chord, but it set the mood of the scene so beautifully. But as a whole it lived up to my expectations of badness and more. I grudgingly concede that it was fun badness. I am ashamed to have enjoyed it. I am ashamed to admit that I'll probably go again. :blush:

In the end, it reminds me of a certain literary review of Pope's translation of The Iliad, "It is a lovely poem, Mr. Pope. But I would not call it Homer." All I can say is that it could have been a truly epic and valuable film if only Frank Miller had been less of a git.