The guy including derides the new Athenians due to the fact ‘boy-lovers’, easily neglecting that out-of his soldiers would have fallen into the you to definitely exact same class
Spartan boys was indeed, like other Greek boys, likely to mode homosexual relationship with older men, and you can Xenophon states you to definitely Spartan soldiers got male people, although they disliked the technique of particular groups, such as Thebes, whom prepared their professional army to sets off lovers. Getting Greeks, encouraging sexual matchmaking anywhere between soldiers created which they create fight more challenging to help you charm and you will cover their partners.
Leonidas is in fact straight; he gets some comfortable support-talk with Gorgo and you will thinks about their unique body when he contemplates submitting so you’re able to Xerxes (whom demonstrably got their freak to your once upon a time and never checked right back).
Another way that the motion picture considerably betrays brand new Spartan heart are in treatments for Dilios (David Wenham), which will lose an eye fixed assaulting which is sent back to Sparta till the finally battle. He is the actual only real survivor (regarding a battle famous correctly for the not enough survivors) plus the narrator of movie. About film’s terms and conditions, his dismissal regarding the army enables your to give you Leonidas’ like to Gorgo and you will, a year later, to lead a huge armed forces from Greeks so you’re able to earn along the Persians at the competition out of Plataea.
However, which ignores the point that Spartan people believed leaving a good race or surviving in defeat a sign of complete cowardice and you can moral worthlessness. The newest poetry from Tyrtaeus of Sparta dwells at length to the need for perishing from inside the battle, going so far as to spell it out it as “beautiful” (eg, about, is one way so you’re able to change new Greek agathos); a person which flees battle will suffer personal embarrassment and you may impoverishment and be shed just after dying. Plutarch records well-known stories in which Spartan moms and dads reject sons exactly who survive matches in which Sparta was outdone; in many times the latest mothers wade so far as to destroy cowardly sons. He states, Spartan parents tell the departing sons to go back along with their safeguards (which is, victorious) or to them (that’s, are carried on brand new protect since an extender); returning with no shield was an indication your guy tossed out his shield so he could flee quicker.
In the place of are considering order so as to avenge new Spartan dead, Dilios could have been ridiculed, with his very own mom would have attempted to destroy your. And the movie knows about that it; Gorgo tells Leonidas to return together with shield otherwise on it. So again, the film makes a program out-of stating some thing and then doing something completely different whenever adopting the guidelines carry out disrupt the new tale.
However, Zack Snyder most likely thought you to definitely presenting a band from manly beefcake warriors groping both throughout trips on the attacking perform not enjoy very well to the fan-boys and you will young people their motion picture try geared towards, thus alternatively he overlooks can also provides as an alternative mostly chaste and you can allegedly heterosexual dudes
Indeed, Dilios was a genuine person. Their genuine identity are Aristodemus, and then he and something guy, Eurytus, suffered attention dilemmas on Thermopylae (Herodotus calls it a sickness of one’s attention, however, possibly the guy setting an injury). Leonidas bought them to return home, but Eurytus refuted and battled no matter if blind. Aristodemus, although not, obeyed Leonidas; consequently, Herodotus tells us he was labeled a coward, and you may beautiful Houma women men would not talk to him otherwise promote him a great light for his fire. A 3rd Spartan, Pantites, and additionally lasted as the he had been delivered somewhere once the good live messenger and you can failed to go back to Thermopylae with time. The guy hanged himself.