He in addition to derides the brand new Athenians as the ‘boy-lovers’, conveniently neglecting that regarding his soldiers might have fell for the one to same classification

Spartan boys was in fact, like many Greek boys, expected to mode homosexual matchmaking that have older men, and you can Xenophon says one Spartan troops got male people, although they hated the technique of specific teams, for example Thebes, just who structured the professional military up to pairs from people. To have Greeks, promising sexual matchmaking ranging from soldiers required that they carry out struggle more challenging to allure and protect the lovers.

Leonidas is really straight; he gets particular soft support-talk with Gorgo and you will thinks of their own human body when he contemplates submitting so you can Xerxes (who clearly had their freak on not so long ago and never searched straight back).

One other way the film significantly betrays this new Spartan soul was in its remedy for Dilios (David Wenham), who seems to lose an eye fighting which will be repaid to help you Sparta before last competition. He’s really the only survivor (of a fight well-known precisely because of its not enough survivors) while the narrator of your own flick. On the film’s conditions, their dismissal in the armed forces enables him to give you Leonidas’ like to Gorgo and you may, the following year, to guide a giant armed forces away from Greeks so you’re able to win along the Persians during the race off Plataea.

But this ignores the reality that Spartan people felt making a great race otherwise residing in defeat an indication of total cowardice and you can moral worthlessness. The newest poetry of Tyrtaeus out-of Sparta dwells Aksu in China girls sexy at length with the dependence on passing away from inside the competition, heading so far as to spell it out it as “beautiful” (particularly, no less than, is a sure way to convert the fresh Greek agathos); men exactly who flees competition will suffer societal humiliation and you may impoverishment and get forgotten once passing. Plutarch account well-known anecdotes in which Spartan moms and dads deny sons who endure fights in which Sparta is beaten; in a lot of cases the brand new parents go so far as so you’re able to kill cowardly sons. He states, Spartan mothers share with its departing sons to return with regards to safeguards (that’s, victorious) or on it (that’s, getting continuous this new shield because a stretcher); going back without having any shield is indicative that the man tossed away his shield so he may flee less.

Instead of becoming offered demand so as to avenge the brand new Spartan dry, Dilios would-have-been ridiculed, and his own mom could have tried to destroy your. Plus the movie knows about which; Gorgo tells Leonidas to return together with his shield otherwise inside. Very again, the film renders a show regarding claiming one thing and then doing things completely different when following the regulations perform interrupt the tale.

But Zack Snyder probably thought that offering a ring off manly beefcake warriors groping one another throughout the holidays on the attacking carry out not gamble very well to your lover-boys and you can teenagers his flick is aimed at, therefore instead the guy overlooks can also provides instead generally chaste and you may presumably heterosexual dudes

In reality, Dilios try a real individual. His genuine term try Aristodemus, and he and one people, Eurytus, sustained attention problems on Thermopylae (Herodotus calls they a sickness of your own eye, but possibly the guy mode an injury). Leonidas purchased them to go homeward, but Eurytus rejected and you can fought regardless if blind. Aristodemus, but not, obeyed Leonidas; as a result, Herodotus confides in us he was labeled a good coward, and you will men would not speak to him otherwise offer your good light to have his fire. A third Spartan, Pantites, together with endured because he had been sent someplace since an excellent messenger and you may didn’t get back to Thermopylae with time. The guy hanged himself.