Vijf redenen dat 300 historisch gezien bullshit was

RDJ134 5 maart 2014 om 01:57 uur

300 van Zack Snyder die alweer acht jaar geleden uit kwam, was niet alleen gebaseerd op een comic, maar ook op een verhaal over 300 spartanen die zich staande hielde tegen de perzen. Alleen... klopt dat historisch gezien niet helemaal. Hoe dit zit is te lezen in dit artikel van Uproxx.


The Persians Weren't A Vast, Clever Fighting Force

To be fair to the movie, the primary historical source for the battle claims that there were millions of Persians on the beaches, and even more conservative estimates put it at 800,000. But modern scholars put it at 70,000 to 300,000; a lot of men, and undeniably outnumbering the Greeks by orders of magnitude, but not exactly the vast army of the movies.

Secondly, Xerxes was, in military parlance, "an idiot." Thermopylae was nicknamed "The Gates Of Hell" for two reasons: One, the bubbling hot springs nearby, and two, the fact that it was a deathtrap. In fact, there have been a lot of battles at Thermopylae, and again and again, it did not end well for whoever was trying to chase someone up the pass.

So Xerxes was essentially sending his men into a death-trap, something everybody involved knew. Secondly, Xerxes spent a week farting around after demanding the Greeks give up and settle on nicer land before attacking, giving them plenty of time to fortify the pass. Oh, and did we mention the Greeks were much better armed?

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