Compare And Contrast Frank Miller's 300

Great Essays
Frank Miller’s 300 is both a graphic novel and a film adaptation by Zach Snyder. Both serve as a story telling of the famed battle of the pass at Thermopylae previously told by Herodotus. It tells of the Spartan King Leonidas bravely leading 300 Spartan warriors against the very large Persian army. Frank Miller details the story of the strong but grossly outnumbered Spartans, the story’s obvious underdog. The Persian army according to history was in the recent business of acquiring land by force or submission. Forcing kings and civilizations to bend at the knee to their God/King Xerxes or to lay their land to waste and be slaughtered. The Persian Army at the time had the agenda of acquiring all of Greece as a part of their territory. The Spartans …show more content…
The Spartan Government did truly view their women as equals. Spartan women, like Queen Gorgo, had a reputation for being very bold, opinionated, and confident. Many compare the boldness, qualities, and freedom of Spartan women to that of a modern American woman. “Only the hard and strong may call themselves Spartans” (Miller & Varley). King Leonidas recognizes the strength of his women. The women of Sparta were indeed Spartans. They were respected and celebrated as members of the Spartan society. Aristotle criticized this view stating that the fall of a country would be at the hands of a woman. Many other Greco-Roman societies did not view women as Sparta did, this set Sparta apart from other Greek and Roman city-states. They had an advanced way of thinking that made them a superior society in this prospect. However, women did not have the right to vote in Sparta but they had a big influence behind the scenes. In order for a woman of Sparta to be considered a true Spartan and granted citizenship, they had to pass a physical test at the age of 18. After acquiring citizenship, a Spartan woman was then allowed to marry and bear children. Spartan woman compared to other Greek societies had babies later in life, which allowed them to be emotionally and physically as healthy as possible in order to bear healthy and strong Spartan

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    The Spartan society revolved around the military: this was its greatest strength and weakness. Unfortunately, The Spartans made it their duty to conquer all neighboring civilizations: forcing them into slavery. Consequently, this meant that they had economic chaos, because they were so driven to seek power. Therefore, they had a oligarchy government. The Spartans did not believe in retreating, when in battle; they looked at as a sign of weakness.…

    • 302 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    First of all, the girls of Sparta had an official education (“Ancient Greece-Sparta”). During their teenage and early adult stage of their lives, “in” order “to attract mates, females engaged in athletic competitions, including javelin-throwing and wrestling, and also sang and danced competitively” (History.com Staff). When a female found a husband, she would cut her short before they were married (History.com Staff). Once married, they are granted, by Spartan law to have land. The only thing the woman had to watch over the family land.…

    • 1168 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Most of the time woman of the cities were controlled by their husbands, but in Sparta the women were free willed and had close to as many rights as the…

    • 898 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The movie 300 depicts the legend of the 300 Spartans who were able to hold off the Persian infantry at Thermopylae. Their stand gave more time for the Greeks to develop further plans and evacuate. The movie is able to follow the journey of the Spartan soldiers as described by many historians, while still adding “Hollywood touches” to make the movie more successful. The movie 300 is able to give a fairly accurate account of what happened during the Persian invasion of Greece and the stand of the brave 300 Spartan soldiers. One important piece of the film that is historically accurate, as well as significant to the story is sending the young, spartan men to military camps to make them true soldiers.…

    • 693 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Obesity In Sparta Essay

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Obesity is defined in Merriam-Webster as a condition characterized by the excessive accumulation and storage of fat in the body. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines obesity by a BMI (Body Mass Index) calculator, if your BMI is over 30 you are obese. Nothing is taken into consideration but your height and weight and the calculator provided by the CDC does not distinguish between men and women. More than 1/3 of adult Americans are over-weight or obese according to the CDC, and the same for children. With all of those definitions and stats stated, the Spartans would consider us a slovenly, undisciplined society that lacks character or duty and devotion to state.…

    • 709 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Women in Athens had no political rights, they were treated as property by their fathers and husbands and were expected to stay home and raise children. Spartans believed that strong women were needed to bear strong sons, women were also trained in gymnastics as well as the men. Because men were so frequently gone, women were allowed to own property and often ran farms and shops. In Athens, women were treated like property and had to live up to this expectation to be a perfect housewife. Spartan women were allowed to own property unlike the women in Athens.…

    • 511 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Decent Essays

    They had fought for days and lost thousands of men but had not made any progress in their invasion. The Persian king brought out a prisoner (or it was a traitor who came on his own free will, the story is disputed) who was tortured and asked for information regarding the battle. The prisoner (or traitor) told the Persians about a small trail above Thermopylae that only the local farmers knew about. It would allow the Persians to sneak up on the Greeks from behind and corner them in the pass of Thermopylae. Sometime during the night, the Kings Guard (the Persian kings elite soldiers) followed the secret pass and ambushed the Greeks.…

    • 471 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Superior Essays

    When the Greeks heard that the Persians are attacking them again, they decide to try and stop the overwhelming number of Persian soldiers in Thermopylae (See Fig. 2). The Spartans decide on this location as it was a narrow field in between mountains which would limit the number of Persian soldiers who could be there. Having geographical knowledge about the land, the Spartans were able to hold off the Persians for seven days. Leonidas, one of the Sparta king was able to keep “most of his force together at the pass, grouped in their national units in the in the normal manner…” holding off the Persians from advancing further. By holding off the Persians at Thermopylae, the Spartans were able to drastically cut down the number of Persian soldiers they would be facing during battle.…

    • 1660 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Greek Battles The Battle of Thermopylae, was a battle between the Greeks and the Persians. Thermopylae was a mountain pass which led to many Greek cities. It was a part of the second invasion of the Persian Empire. The Persians invaded Greek cities to control more land. The Persian Empire was led by Xerxes, he ordered the attack.…

    • 456 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Finally, a decade after the battle at Marathon, Xerxes begins to move towards Greece. As Xerxes started his journey, many Greek city-states offered up “earth and water” as tokens of submission. However, much like they did previously, Sparta and Athens refused to submit to Persian rule. In 480 B.C.E. at the battle of Thermopylae, the great Persian army faced off with Spartan forces. In the famous Spartan story, King Leonidas led 6,000 men –with 300 of Sparta’s elite hoplites – to hold the pass at Thermopylae, so that the Persian army could not advance to Athens .…

    • 1445 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Roles Of Women In Sparta

    • 2001 Words
    • 9 Pages

    Despite the fact that some hypothesize that Athenian women would be granted more rights than the strict Spartans, it is actually that Spartan women owned more freedom as a whole. In all three components, Spartan women were given more freedom than Athenians. For instance, Athenian women were not allowed to own property while Spartan women were handed down the household’s wealth and given proprietary rights. These differences all occurred under the great influence of the major cultural differences, even though both Athens and Sparta are part of Greece. Spartans’ lifestyle is mainly directed in training men for fighting and therefore the women are granted freedom and proprietary rights as the society as a whole needed people to take care of the houses’ wealth and property while the men would be gone in strict military education.…

    • 2001 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Spartan Women by Sarah B. Pomeroy, is a book on the roles of women in Sparta. The book revolves the daily lives of Spartan women and goes in depth about the elite and lower classes. The women of Sparta are commonly believed to be unimportant and to have an insignificant role in society. Most primary sources were not from Sparta itself and were usually written by other people such as Plutarch and Xenophon. Pomeroy work on ancient Greek history has led her to try and better understand the women of Sparta.…

    • 1033 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On Sparta And Athens

    • 1037 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Unlike, Athens women, Sparta women were allowed to read and write and have an education. But women of Sparta were not able to own any land or sue anyone under no circumstances. Spartan women had a reputation of having an independent and confident nature. The women of Sparta felt they were very fortunate to be the mothers and wives of rich warriors. The women were free to be in charge of almost everything that did not involve the army.…

    • 1037 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the 8th c. BC, the Spartan lawgiver Lycurgus traveled the Mediterranean examining kingdoms and governments in order to reform his polis. His goal was to eliminate the lawlessness and disorder that had weakened Sparta and create a new constitution to keep it free. Three of Lycurgus’ reforms to ensure freedom were the youth training and childhood (the agoge), the removal of extravagance and the creation of generalization between the people, and the social code when it came to battle and the consensus. Historically, Sparta remained unconquered until the 3rd c. [500 years] because of this, Sparta remained a free polis. To Lycurgus, freedom meant freedom from foreign intervention.…

    • 804 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Essay On The Movie 300

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The textbook explains that women had to be independent, as well as the ability to have financial affairs and allowance to own land (Pg. 64). 300 shows that during the political council, the queen (woman) was allowed to speak among. This particular scene approves two ideas of the Sparta, first the allowance of women even in the political view, and second, the…

    • 989 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays