300

My fascination with Sparta continues.

Finding fodder for it isn't always easy, so it's a treat to find a new version of the story of King Leonidas of Sparta and the Battle of Thermopylae by one of my favourite comic book writers, Frank Miller. I have my doubts about his new Batman and Robin series, but no reservations at all about 300.

There are no footnotes, though there's a bibliography. Miller brings out the full drama of the story and embellishes it. These Spartans are (as they should be) tougher than tough; marching almost naked, expecting death, dramatically unified, courting hardship to the point of masochism. Dialogue is pretty much straight from history:

Spartan: Turn back to your master and tell him he faces free men - not slaves.
Persian envoy: Not slaves, no. Your women will be slaves. Your sons and daughters and brothers and elders will be slavs. But not you. By this noon you will be dead men. One hundred nations descend upon you! Our arrows will blot out the sun!
Spartan: Then we'll fight in the shade.

With the dramatized verisimilitude of the Spartans, I was surprised by the Persians - made xenotic to a starling degree, Nubians covered in glittering piercings and chains. The goatherd who betrays the Spartans is here a hunchback soldier, driven out of Sparta for his deformity. Leonidas refuses him for the army, asking him to stand, explaining that he can't stand tall enough to protect the other soldiers with his shield. The man-monster goes to Xerxes of Persia, who says to him: "I am kind. Cruel Leonidas demanded that you stand. I require only that you kneel."

They're making a movie of this, starring Gerard Butler - and Miller's Leonidas even looks like Butler. And David Wenham's in it too, as Delios the storyteller. And a Brazilian is playing Xerxes.

I confess: I've always liked Xerxes. Ah, those ancient kings.