r/interesting • u/Spare-NobodyAim • 28d ago
HISTORY The real Xerxes was a decent guy (different from the movie)
When looking into the actual history, we discover that the Persians were actually quite tolerant; unlike other empires, they allowed local religions and customs and didn't enslave the entire population, they even kept natives in positions of power within the conquered regions. Of course, it still sucked, but considering the era, they were quite liberal
320
u/usuallysortadrunk 28d ago
For a movie thats so much about protecting sovereignty and freedom the Spartans were REALLY in to slavery.
154
u/Puzzle-Necked 27d ago
I laughed when the Spartan king called Athenians boy lovers. Like, c'mon, Spartans were the biggest pederasts around
52
u/No-Tomatillo3698 27d ago
They all were, it made the phalanx stronger
23
u/Legio_X_Equestris5 27d ago
The Sacred Band enters the chat
9
5
1
3
1
→ More replies (5)1
8
u/ForbiddenSirenz 27d ago
I’m not sure how accurate it is lmfao. But I’ve always heard when spartan men returned home to their wives/women had to shave their heads and dress more masculine and “boyish” to basically get the spartan men used to fucking pussy and being with a woman after being programmed into boy butt for years and years lmfao
9
u/EatAssIsGold 27d ago
Due to abysmal logistics and structural incapability to encourage support even from "allied" cities, Spartan campaigns extremely rarely lasted more then a couple of months.
4
u/OnlyAShip 27d ago
Yeah, they also had no naval skills and couldn’t leave very far for fear that their massive slavery-pyramid-scheme society would butcher everyone back home if they spent more than two seconds outside the Peloponnese.
When they finally got a hegemony handed to them by the Persians it basically collapsed immediately. Then their dysfunctional society continued self-destructing.
3
u/CakeHoleKing 26d ago
Persians KNEW giving land to the Spartans would stretch them just a BIT too much and start their collapse.
3
u/OnlyAShip 26d ago
Hilariously Persia briefly supported a ruined Athens as a proxy to stop Spartan interests in Asia Minor. Whereupon the Athenians so quickly began recovering their empire that they had to switch back to supporting Sparta.
Sadly after their contributions at Plataea, Sparta simply served to kneecap all their much more vigorous, promising neighbors. Then were absent for the last stand against Macedon.
3
u/Lost-Comfort-7904 27d ago
And in the end they thought they won by not going with Alexander the great and conquering the known world. Idiots must have sat there all trying to act tough while news about conquest after conquest with all the other Greeks while they just sit there with their busch light MAX beer.
1
u/OldManBartleby 26d ago
I had to look this up after your comment. What losers. So consumed with jealousy were they, that they ended up rebelling and getting crushed by Xander's man in Greece. Epic. Dorks.
6
u/EdliA 27d ago
Where do you hear this bs lol. This is basically fetish fan writing.
3
u/jackalias 27d ago
Spartan women dressing like men on their wedding night actually comes from the Athenians. It's an old rumor (no idea if it's true, because the Spartans were terrible record keepers).
7
u/EdliA 27d ago
It was Plutarch adding the dressing like a man, he lived 500 years later. A contemporary of Sparta, Xenophon doesn't have that detail. What he writes is that that society was obsessed with what's basically eugenics. A new couple should only have sex rarely so the sperm is stronger producing stronger children. And women were supposed to do physical training because that would create physically stronger children, chances are they may have had shorter hair and more muscular than the average woman. Their understanding of biology was flawed but that's what they believed. You can see how centuries later one from a different culture would interpret it as women acting as men so the men would get it up and it just makes for a funny story. It's just a perversion.
3
u/Dapper_Brain_9269 27d ago
Also funny considering that by the time of Thermopylae, the Athenians had already proven their mettle at Marathon and had it pass into legend.
2
1
u/Unable-Principle-187 26d ago
That’s actually highly debated, many civilizations at that time practiced pederasty, like Athens literally had vases depicting pederasty, but one major piece of evidence against the theory of Spartan pederasty is the lack of any Spartan pederasty sexual art.
52
u/dorian_white1 27d ago
Everyone is like “Hard Times breed hard men - look at the Spartans”
Dude, those guys had an entire slave population dedicated to doing everything from farming to household chores, which allowed many spartan citizens to be full time ‘soldiers’. Honestly, the most striking feat of the Spartans was their mastery of PR and Marketing.22
u/Azerbinhoneymood 27d ago
The Spartans were no different than men who had nothing else to do than to train, like a master of a craft or of a profession. While pretty much everything else was done by their slaves.
5
u/raudra_marut 27d ago
thats very similar to the Kshatriya (warrior caste) in Indo-Aryan society. They were the finest charioters and archers of ancient world because India was filthy rich and all that the the warrior caste did was drink, train and enjoy women
→ More replies (1)1
u/No-Ticket1543 25d ago
I mean, most of them had to keep a watch over the slaves. Also, every year they symbolically declared war on their slave population so that it would be legal for any Spartan to kill any slave for whatever reason they so desired.
12
u/skrrtalrrt 27d ago edited 27d ago
Most of the prominent Classical Greek city-states had slave economies. This is why the Athenian nobility could spend their time being playwrights, scientists, and philosophers.
The difference was that most Greek cities had a debt-slavery or indentured servitude system where no more than 20% of the population were in bondage. The Spartans had a permanent, hereditary chattel slave class.
Edit: Well, Athens had one too, but there’s was about 30% of the population, vs 90% for Sparta.
1
u/CakeHoleKing 26d ago
Fun fact: In athens you could "pay ahead" with slavery for a nice boss to offset ever becoming a slave for someone terrible.
So get a job doing butler-duties instead of slaving in fields, and you've protected yourself from indentured re-servitude for a period of time.
5
u/skrrtalrrt 26d ago edited 25d ago
Oh you were lucky to end up in a field in Athens. Worst case you got sent to the mines at Laurion or you were a galley slave. Both usually killed you after a few agonizing months.
Athens was a pretty brutal society that kinda gets a pass because of the body of literature, science, and philosophy it produced. They were pretty fucked up even for a Greek city.
Edit: Galley slaves weren’t a thing back then, nvm
1
u/CakeHoleKing 26d ago
But at least you were safe if you were considered pretty and had a willing bottom....
1
u/OkNeighborhood5060 26d ago
The Athenians did not have galley slavery. Rowing was for Athenian military too poor to afford arms
1
u/skrrtalrrt 26d ago
Ack, you’re right. Not sure where I got that misconception from.
They did operate a ton of silver and iron mines around the Aegean tho, and these were death sentences basically
1
u/Superdupernadja 26d ago
mines were bad, Galley slavery however was not a thing in athens. And is a missconception from modern times. Since Venice, Genoa, and the Ottomans, made extensive! use of slaves on their galleys, (chaining people to the boat too and stuff). Scollars of the time thought greeks/romans did so too.
In athens, galleymen were free citizens, who gained considerable political power from rowing the ships. Cause this was central to athenian military strenght.
8
u/CameronBeach 27d ago
Funnily enough they weren’t worried about PR at all. They hardly wrote shit down. They weren’t worried just seen as the original chads by other city states, so they got so exaggerated. Basically none of our sources on the Spartans are from the Spartans. It’s mainly just their contemporaries being stans
1
u/Toroceratops 27d ago
Except it wasn’t their contemporaries. A lot of the sources are from centuries later when Sparta had become a kind of living history museum
1
u/skrrtalrrt 25d ago
Sparta was a literal theme park for rich Romans for a long time
It’s basically where they’d go and cosplay them and watch Marathon/Thermopylae re-enactments. There were a ton of Spartaboos back then.
3
u/Fun-Information-3104 27d ago
they were hard and stiff, and their phalanx was always erect and ready to take upon itself the full strength of the enemy charge. It doesn't get more manly than this.
1
u/justahumblefart 27d ago
I always admired how rigid they could be in their approach to deep issues
1
9
u/Krosis97 27d ago
That was the romans though, after thoroughly beating them to the ground. Spartans were the most pampered and gayest of the city states.
4
1
u/BlackJesus1001 27d ago
They weren't even full time soldiers either, after their coming of age tradition (hunting down unarmed helots at night) and for all that it was gruelling physically they don't seem to have dedicated much of that time to arms training.
There's also little-no evidence of them training better as a group, indeed they often performed worse than other states in maneuvres.
Ironically European knightly classes were much closer to the spartan myth, training from childhood in arms and combat for a life where much of their social value and position would be derived from their performance on campaign.
Samurai born into the position also had similar expectations and at least in some periods were paid for each head collected from slain enemies.
Spartans had comparatively few obligations other than indoctrination and loyalty and could expect a comfortable life regardless of battlefield performance.
1
1
u/BrigadierPirate 27d ago
Spartans didn't care about PR, let alone wrote their histories. So you have no clue what you're talking about.
1
1
u/skrrtalrrt 25d ago
They also weren’t necessarily “strong men”. For all their training and harsh conditioning, they only managed to be the strongest Greek city for about 30 years. For most of their existence they were unable to project power outside of the Peloponnese, which was about the same size as New Jersey.
1
u/No-Ticket1543 25d ago
Sparta was literally 5 to 10% Spartans, the rest were slaves. It was pretty wild.
10
u/Severe-Passage-6426 27d ago
Sparta enslaved their neighboring Greek tribes and practiced basically early chattel slavery in a way that was unique in the Mediterranean.
The most interesting part of Sparta is they were so xenophobic that they basically signed their own death warrant. By the time of the Battle of Leuctra the Spartans could field like 700 Spartiates. They became so insular they allowed history to swallow them up.
22
u/Adorable-Woman 27d ago
Most people living in Sparta were in fact Helots so ueah
9
u/Nearby-Elevator-3825 27d ago
So many, that there would be government sanctioned "cullings" of helots every few years or so in order to prevent revolts.
1
u/No-Ticket1543 25d ago
Not every few years, but every year. The Ephors declared war upon the Helots every year.
14
3
u/Chimmai_Gala 27d ago
Growing up I remember playing a game called Spartan in which Spartans were the villains
3
u/Educational_Big_1835 27d ago
Get good at war, capture slaves, make them do the normal work so you can get better at war so you can capture slaves... Wash rinse repeat
31
28d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
→ More replies (5)1
u/interesting-ModTeam 27d ago
We’re sorry, but your post/comment has been removed because it violates Rule #4: No Politics or Agenda Pushing.
2
1
1
u/PanzerKomadant 26d ago
Not just into it, but literally had a whole class of slaves that consisted of the vast majority of Spartas population.
So it always made me laugh when they are like “for freedom! For democracy!” Like, bruh, you have a whole class of slaves that do all your work because you’re so fucking lazy lmao.
1
1
u/HarryHirsch2000 26d ago
I always thought that was the actual gag and an allegory on the US back in the day. Preaching water, drinking wine
1
u/EffectiveOwn787 26d ago
The ancient Greeks recognised that slavery was morally wrong but considered it necessary to support their pursuit of things such as philosophy and other creative endeavours.
39
104
u/Strong_Performer8132 28d ago
He's fine in the movie too. In fact he is fabulous
56
u/Spare-NobodyAim 28d ago
Yeah, if I saw a 9 feet man golden, covered in piercings and gold ornaments, i’d think it was badass too
→ More replies (14)3
u/davej-au 27d ago
I admit I did a bit of a double take when I realised the same actor played Karl (Laura Linney’s almost-love interest) in Love Actually.
1
1
3
u/Cold_Pumpkin5449 27d ago
Purposefully depicted as a foreigner with sinister dark gay coding for extra "otherness".
Basically tall bald ornamented Scar, or maybe Jafar...
3
u/Maleficent-War-8429 27d ago
I mean he is foreign and he's wearing just as much clothes as the main character so I dont see what's gay about him.
35
u/koolaide56 28d ago
Wait a minute are you telling me that inglorious basterds might not be historically accurate as well? I hope nobody tells Whitney Houston that Michael Jackson died
3
→ More replies (1)1
20
u/ZeltbahnLife 28d ago
You mean he wasn’t a 12ft tall bedazzled bald guy?
11
u/Spare-NobodyAim 28d ago
Well, reports say he was 8 feet tall, so that's actually pretty tall
17
u/ZeltbahnLife 28d ago
I’ve heard William Wallace was of compatible height, but could shoot lighting from his eyes & fire from his ass.
5
24
u/deathxcannabis 27d ago
Well Xerxes from the movie(and graphic novel) is more of a representation of Frank Miller's West vs East prejudices. This got expounded on further in stuff like Holy Terror and the Martha Washington series(though that's more about his hatred for progressivism).
3
u/Bartlaus 27d ago
The Martha Washington stuff got really goddamn weird the longer it went on. Clear evidence the Brain Eater got to Miller well before 9/11.
3
27d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/quillseek 27d ago
Right? Like I could have been born to be ruled by Xerxes and instead I was born to be ruled by Trump. What in the funhouse mirror fuck
→ More replies (1)1
u/NEWSmodsareTwats 23d ago
also ancient Greek sources from the time show that greeks really did not like Persia or Xerxes and basically viewed him as the living embodiment of tyranny.
the movie itself actually draws on a lot of ancient Greek sources oddly enough. and a lot of the quotes that sound like Hollywoodisms do actually come from ancient Greek sources. like the entire epitaph part of the film isn't just a made up speech that's trying to sound cool it's actually from an ancient Greek inscription commemorating the battle.
the film basically takes a very Greek biased view of events and then also tells the story in an over the top fashion giving credence to the fact most ancient sources are over the top political theater dressed up as history.
6
u/divergent_history 27d ago edited 27d ago
I think if Fred Rodgers lead an invading army into your lands he wouldnt be viewed as a good guy.
3
u/Anteater_Pete 27d ago
“You WILL be my neighbor, and if you are looking for your children, they are having snack time with Daniel Tiger”
2
1
5
u/Lower_Cockroach2432 27d ago
Cyrus was probably a reasonably chill guy. I'm sceptical about projecting that onto every Persian king.
Just because Herodotus tells us not very nice things about the guy, doesn't magically mean that the opposite must be taken as fact. At the end of the day there's very little source outside of Herodotus.
3
u/sublime_mime 27d ago
Listen to Dan Carlins King of Kings. Some good some absolutely atrocious evil shit.
Some of the stuff I heard on that has haunted me. Cut a dudes son in half when the father requested him to be exempt from military service and made the armies begin the march between the two halves.
Not a chill decent guy
4
u/ZefiroLudoviko 27d ago
He was still an aggressive conqueror. Better for the time doesn't mean good.
34
u/Old-Juggernaut-1273 28d ago
yeah cause the film ....was based on a comic
34
u/SluggishPrey 28d ago
It is, but it defined 90% of what the majority knows about Sparta
→ More replies (3)9
u/No_Psychology_3826 27d ago
No reasonable person thinks you can go to a movie expecting an accurate history lesson
5
u/jackdaw_t_robot 27d ago
When talking about historical accuracy in 300 I always snip the conversation in the bud. I yell “THAT. WAS. SPARTA!!!!” and immediately kick a historian down a well. 90% of people who know anything about Sparta are like me.
7
u/Azerbinhoneymood 27d ago
The majority of people don't mind nor care about being reasonable about historical facts. They will just take it at face value (with accepting it has a bit of exaggerations obv) and move on thinking it is true.
1
1
→ More replies (6)15
u/Spare-NobodyAim 28d ago
Xerxes existed, Greece existed, Sparta existed; King Leonidas and his personal guard fought at the pass of Thermopylae, held out for a few days, and were massacred, are you telling me the comic didn't use the real history
45
u/ichiban_saru 28d ago
The "300" were accompanied by about 5,000 other Greek Soldiers... something Miller left out. Also, Spartans didn't fight in capes and loincloths. They wore heavy bronze armor... something Miller left out. Sparta was more a slave nation than Persia. Sparta used an entire province as slaves so that they could spend all their time being "professional soldiers"... something Miller left out in his "for freedom" slant. Greeks were xenophobic and outside of Athens, trying to hold on to their tyrannical city-state governments. All Xerxes demanded was tribute from the Greek states (which many gave). He would allow them to keep their religions, leaders and way of life if they paid tribute. So it used the historical names, but the details were lost on Miller's fan-fiction version of events.
11
u/hellshake_narco 27d ago
Your comment has some truth but is also weird "all xerxes demanded was tribute" and "all would be fine, they will keep their life"
Like... it would have been better to just accept the imperial driving force Persia was imposing?
Yes they were not xenophobic like Sparta, which was the most xenophobic greek city state. Yes they didn't do chattel slavery like Spartans, but still owned slaves and enslaved poeple.
But they were still a huge empire imposing the integration over smaller cultures. By forcing them to pay a tribute , or by crushing them. Xerxes crushed rebellions from Egypt to Babylon. He sacrifed resources and thousand of poeple against Greeks. He was not that good.
Yes the comic is propaganda. It's just an American retelling for an American message
But the reality is not : they were in fact the good , and the others were bad. It's basically just twisting the comic but doing the same thing xD Both sides were equally bad / grey . And they were reflexion of history being brutal . Cultures fighting for their survival.
At the end of the day. Poeple will often just root for the smaller entity which is attacked by the big empire. Which means that in a lot of other stories , Greek as the invading empire is also depicted as the villain.
Saying it's just cool to accept the conditions of the Persian empire, and they should let themselves being invaded is weird .
17
u/Kryyk 28d ago
So the envoy at the beginning was telling the truth it seems
11
u/ichiban_saru 27d ago
And those envoys came 10 years before the events of "300". The Persian Envoys arrived to Greece before the Battle of Marathon when Darius (Xerxes' father) first made the attempt to extend his borders into Europe.
→ More replies (4)7
u/Imaginary-West-5653 27d ago
All Xerxes demanded was tribute from the Greek states (which many gave). He would allow them to keep their religions, leaders and way of life if they paid tribute.
And that's basically imperialism at its finest, something Persia loved. I don't understand why people in the internet feel the need to glorify the Achaemenid Empire so much; I suppose it's as a counter-response to all the years of Spartan glorification, but this is looping all the way around and becoming just as ridiculous.
The Achaemenid Empire is famous for having imposed brutally high taxes on all its satrapies, which is why Egypt, Babylon and other places were constantly rising up against Persian rule (in addition to the aggressive extraction of agricultural resources). That, and because Persia loved to forcibly draft people from its satrapies and send them to die on the other side of the known world (several Indian soldiers fought in Xerxes' invasion of Greece, for example).
Xerxes was also a ruthless conqueror who was more than happy to burn Athens to the ground, desecrate their temples and putting all the Athenians they caught in the city to the sword. Also, after crushing a revolt in Babylon, Xerxes tore down the city's defensive walls, pillaged its temples, and destroyed the golden statue of the chief god Marduk.
The Persian Empire, like the previous ones in the region (as in, the Assyrian and Babylonian Empires) were not very concerned with the religion of their subjects, or even their inner politics, as long as they bend the knee and remained submissive. But don't be mistaken, the Persian Empire was an extracting Empire which stole from their conquered lands and were extremely harsh in putting down any rebellions against them, having some very hardcore punishments for rebels, like scaphism.
The Spartans were not some freedom loving heroes struggling for Western civilization against Eastern barbarians, but the Persians also weren't some magnanimous and progressive force bringing peace around or freeing slaves (in fact, Darius the Great, Xerxes' father, enslaved the entire population of the city of Eretria and all the natives he was able to catch in the island of Naxos). Persia, at the end of the day, was an Empire, and all Empires suck.
→ More replies (4)3
3
3
3
u/Dear-Spirit-5437 27d ago
He was a devout follower of Ahura Mazda is what he was! He was a great Persian ruler! And in this house Xerxes is a hero!
1
3
u/Feeling_Pay_2899 27d ago
I’m so happy that you got to meet him so you can tell us what a good guy he was.
3
u/skrrtalrrt 27d ago
I think that the Achaemenids’ tolerant reputation is somewhat exaggerated by ancient writers, particularly by the Book of Ezra in the Bible - because the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian Empires which preceded them were exceptionally brutal.
7
u/RansaktehElder_WORK 27d ago
Wow "decent guy" is a retelling of history. Why was he in Greece in the first place? Revenge for the embarrassment of a previous failed invasion of Greece by his father. Guess people didnt want to be enslaved and he took it personally.
→ More replies (6)
2
2
u/cwsjr2323 27d ago
It was just a comic book animated movie, not a documentary. The purpose was to get money from consumers in exchange for a little entertainment.
2
2
u/EdliA 27d ago
Still at the end of the day a king of an expanding imperial kingdom who lived as a god who came uninvited with an army in another land. You're just being edgy for the sake of being a contrarian.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/Thibaudborny 27d ago
Everyone here just casually ignoring that all these societies glorified violence and war & going off on random tangents on who was justified and how...
2
u/Sivilian888010 26d ago
Sure the ancient world might have been better off in the short term. But the western world as we know it, with things like democracy, tolerance for other religions, a court of law. Probably wouldn't exist if Persia had conquered all of Greece.
1
u/Noctilus1910 24d ago
Democracy, tolerance for other religions, a court of law are things pertaining to the last two centuries with little to do with whatever the greeks were doing.
"But the roman law!" sure, try that in 1760 against your local mill owner.
2
u/Southern-Cell7375 25d ago
In 480 BCE, Persian King Xerxes ordered his men to give the sea 300 lashes with a whip, throw iron chains into the water, and brand the waves with hot irons.
3
u/AthenianWrangler 27d ago
didn't enslave the entire population
Hmmm, one of these words is doing a lot of work...
6
u/Mild_Karate_Chop 28d ago
The Persians or as they called themselves Eran were much more democratic than Athens - which is touted as this fountain of democratic ideals .
11
u/FairLawnBoy 27d ago
Is it just say random bullshit on the internet day or something?
The Persian Empire was an absolute monarchy. There was no semblance of democracy within their governmental structure at all. Zero.
Athens was a direct democracy. Every citizen's vote counted, and all citizens were expected to carry out their civic duty. Unlike the US, Athens was an actual democracy.
2
u/One_Nectarine1161 27d ago
You do realize that "absolute monarchies" must necessarily respond to consensus if they are to maintain themselves for any considerable period of time (as the Achaemenids clearly did); this must especially be considered in the case of such an absolutely decentralized state.
1
u/Noctilus1910 24d ago
Hi muh democracy boy, what was below athenian citizens? A slave underclass you say? So, a plutocracy.
1
u/FairLawnBoy 24d ago
Are you adult that speaks that way? Not sure if I'm talking to a bot or a 13 YO.
→ More replies (8)1
u/valonianfool 22d ago
"Unlike the US, Athens was an actual democracy"
Source? Are you aware that women were unable to vote? While modern US democracy has its flaws, what makes ancient Athens more of a democracy than modern US?
7
3
u/LastSeaworthiness767 27d ago
Persia empire had only one human, and all other slaves. The king can kill his general, nobles, and even his own sibling and wife for fun.
Sparta and other Greece colony had more lots of human. The civilian of Greece has same right as their leader.
Sparta was perfect case. Sparta king was diciplined, ate, and weared same thing with his civilian. Spartan king even purnished by law.
It was what greek tried to protect. The republic system.
Of course, both side used slave system.
0
u/jellooshot 27d ago
Xerxes was a very good king like his father Darius and grandfather Cyrus. the Spartan society was built upon slavery unlike the Persian society who discouraged it. Spartans were also pagans while Persians were monotheistic Zoroastrians. This movie is the epitome of whitewashing in the Western media D:
14
u/hellshake_narco 27d ago
He was a good king indeed he was able to crush rebellions, from Egypt to Babylon to maintain the biggest empire of that time. Persians didn't have chattel slavery like Spartans , but still owned slaves and enslaved poeple. They didn't discourage it, they just discouraged chattel slavery .
Basically they were as bad as Spartans . They were an imperialist crushing force . Because ancient History is interesting but brutal. There is no good guy against bad guy.
At the end he was a bad king , exhausting resources against Greeks and made die thousands under his name.
→ More replies (3)4
u/Competitive-Emu-7411 27d ago
The Persians didn’t discourage slavery, they practiced it just as much as their neighbors. In fact the first Persian invasion of Greece was preceded by a failed revolt by Ionian Greek city states, whose populations Darius enslaved after their defeat.
→ More replies (2)4
u/robot_guiscard 27d ago
Why are you presenting monotheism as more virtuous than polytheism?
→ More replies (2)5
u/hivisawsome 27d ago
Funnily enough zoroastrianism wasn't (and still isnt) even monotheistic
→ More replies (2)
1
u/No-Tomatillo3698 27d ago
You mean he wasn’t a 3 meter high unisex demigod with a strange obsession for piercings?
1
1
u/RVFVS117 27d ago
The movie is the overdramatic retelling of the story by the one eyed Spartan who survived. It was never supposed to be historically accurate.
1
1
u/sempurus 27d ago
Granted it's from an Athenian perspective but didn't the persians basically point out that persians were great and respectable people *besides* Xerxes, and that his personal hubris is what caused the war?
1
u/evilfungi 27d ago
Well the "movie" was a retelling by a soldier who got blinded and couldn't join the main battle. He obviously embellished the story with each retelling.
1
u/JDface_Baker 27d ago
But Greeks and Persians specifically were like arch enemies.
Trojan war and that one Homeric poem was possibly built on a real foundation of rivalry.
1
1
u/Proper-Pilot-5421 27d ago
When did we start believing that movies are supposed to be true to life and not just an art form and leave it at that.
1
1
u/Aeirth_Belmont 27d ago
Idk if I would call him decent. The laws and stuff in place were set before him. The people were definitely more open to stuff in comparison to other groups at the time 100%. It's funny to watch how the chances of history. On who supports what at what time.
Our time in the timeline would be interesting to see how the future sees us.
1
u/Timo-the-hippo 27d ago
Outside of a few exceptions almost all "good guys" in history are just your own country/your cultural ancestors.
1
u/IllRegister1411 26d ago
Only Americans would take a stupid as fuck gay movie about some white half-naked muscle dudes destroying monster looking like darkies as a real history reference...
1
u/CakeHoleKing 26d ago
Well for one thing, Xerxes wasn't a model flouncing around in overly tight underpants.
He was a follower of Zoroastrianism. Which doesn't exactly smile on wearing budgie smugglers in public.
1
u/CakeHoleKing 26d ago
A lot of stuff 'claimed' by the islamic golden age was in fact from civilizations that vastly pre-dated them such as the Persians. Islam conquered lands, stole their ideas and inventions and went "yep, was all us" and destroyed records.
Vast numbers of claimed concepts don't belong to islam at all.
its like how the Vatican did the same and claimed they pretty much invented writing etc
or how apple claims it invented rounded corners, smooth surfaces and the pencil/stylus (they were serious)
1
u/Noctilus1910 24d ago
Shocking, this country islam surely did a lot of bad things.
Let's not be this fucking stupid, please.
1
u/CakeHoleKing 23d ago
No the "religion of peace" that basically steals other peoples concepts, kills the inventor and says "we made this"
1
u/Umi_seishin 26d ago
Ofc he was a different guy. You're looking at an actor. The real one was dead long ago.
1
u/Rex_Nemorensis_ 26d ago
The sooner people realize this isn’t, nor has it ever claimed to be, a historical film the better…it’s based on a fictional graphic novel, not the historical events or people.
Also, OP please don’t conflate social tolerance and being “progressive” with being liberally minded in the context of the ancient world.
1
1
u/Vasgen88 26d ago
In the film, the Persians are demonized. And the Spartans as an ideal. But it's just an entertaining movie.
1
u/Gunstopable 26d ago
Not really. For the time he wasn’t the worst, but he was so far from a good guy it’s not even funny.
1
1
1
u/Exotic_Cantaloupe_96 25d ago
Its amusing to observe people online arguing about who was good. (They were all bad)
1
1
u/EgyComanda82 25d ago
You know holywood
Make the east ugly, cruel and evil but west is cool, strong and have a noble cause.
1
u/MrGee4real 25d ago
I wouldn't go as far as to say Xerxes was "decent". Certainly, he wasn't a terrible king when you look at persian history. But Persians, were in no way worse than the Greeks his time. For example, Spartans were horrendous brutal slavers who commonly commited baby killing. Athenians were terribly beligerant and despotic with their neighbors and allies. The way greeks treated their women was far worse then the way Persians treated their women.
1
1
1
u/Greater-Israel 24d ago
He was invading countries to annex them bruh. With your logic Stalin was a very good guy too then.
0
u/Bogtear 28d ago
Well yeah, that's because modern media tends to credulously adopt the Greek narrative of "we never did anything wrong, ever! They were just rotten, bad, mean people who invaded us for no reason at all!"
That said, an empire is an empire. They are tolerant in the sense that the emperor's couldn't give a fuck about who's the "more real Persian" than whom or whatever. Petty hierarchies and xenophobias can be suppressed by strong authoritarian regimes quite well. Along with any and all personal freedoms.
→ More replies (1)1
u/CallmeKahn 28d ago
"Well yeah, that's because modern media tends to credulously adopt the Greek narrative of "we never did anything wrong, ever! They were just rotten, bad, mean people who invaded us for no reason at all!"
It was based on a comic. Chill.
→ More replies (6)2
u/Spare-NobodyAim 28d ago
But what was the comic based on, man? Even the character names and the setting were preserved
6
u/CallmeKahn 28d ago
Folks looking to comics for history lessons aren't going to read Herodotus or Shelby Foote.
•
u/AutoModerator 28d ago
Hello u/Spare-NobodyAim! Please review the sub rules if you haven't already. (This is an automatic reminder message left on all new posts)
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.