The film 300 tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae while shedding light on the societal and governmental structures that moved the city-state of Sparta forward . Ancient Sparta was one of the most powerful city-states in Greece. Their influence and power was widely recognized as a product of their militaristic mentality. Ancient Sparta designed a warrior culture solely to train soldiers to ensure they were victorious in every battle. The Sparta army might have become a source of considerable interest for modern media. Films like ​300​ aim to capture the physical prowess and vigor of ancient Spartan warriors while exposing the various factors that led to their rise to become such a powerful city-state; such as infanticide, the agoge tradition and the role of ephors in government. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Infanticide was a practice practiced by countless ancient city-states, including Sparta. Infanticide is the intentional practice of disposing of a child shortly after birth. The idea of ​​infanticide was such an important practice in ancient Greece that it became ingrained in their culture and included in important mythological stories. In Hesiod's epic poem, "Theogony," infanticide is a recurring concept, as when the titan Cronus devours his children shortly after their birth. For the ancient Spartans, the practice of infanticide was used as a way to ensure that only healthy and strong individuals would have a place in their society. Plutarch was a Platonic philosopher who took note of ancient Sparta's practice of infanticide in his early writings, ​The Life of Lycurgus​. Plutarch explained that “the elders of Sparta examined every newborn child and if he was well built and strong, they ordered the father to raise him and allocated him one of the nine thousand lots of land; but if he was badly born and deformed, they sent him to what is called the Apothetes, a place like a chasm at the foot of Mount Taygetos. Zach Snyder (the director of 300​) attempts to capture this image in the film's opening scene. Leonidas is taken to the edge of a cliff and is observed for possible mistakes. Finding none, he is soon returned to his mother, a fate that hundreds of Spartan babies could not share, as the camera pans beneath the cliff and the audience observes the bones of countless dead babies. Contrary to ancient scriptures and the depiction of infanticide embodied in 300 A.D., modern researchers have found no evidence that Spartan babies were thrown off a cliff. The practice of infanticide was still a reality, but not as extreme as ​300​ and Plutarch claimed. Anthropologist from the Faculty of Medicine of Athens, Theodore Pitsios, states that "after more than five years of analysis of the human remains extracted from the pit, also called apothetes, the researchers found only the remains of adolescents and adults aged 18 to 35. 3 The bones were those of forty-six men dating from the 5th and 6th centuries BC. This finding, although rejecting that Spartan babies were the ones thrown off the cliff, supports a different argument from ancient sources that ancient Spartans threw captured prisoners and traitors off the cliff. Spartan babies, if deemed unfit to serve under the State, 4 would be abandoned on the side of a hill, left to nature to be consumed or, on the off chance, adopted bystrangers. Although 300 followed Plucharchus' path when it came to explaining infanticide, Plutarch's description of infanticide and the modern description of infanticide in ancient Sparta both describe the reason for the infanticide in Sparta due to their determination to keep only strong and able-bodied people. the state. A strong, able-bodied man would lead to a skilled soldier, and a strong, able-bodied woman would grow up and give birth to more soldiers. The methods Sparta used to carry out infanticide stood in stark contrast to the way other city-states practiced it. One of the main distinguishing features was that when it came to infanticide in Sparta, a member of the council of Spartan elders was the one who inspected and determined the fate of the child. Plutarch explained that the council of elders was a creation of King Lycurgus and that they were responsible for the inspection of children. This is distinct from the 5 methods of other city-states like Athens, which simply required the father to inspect and dispose of the child if he was considered unfit to serve under the state. Ancient Spartan society revolved around military power, making the military a key aspect of Sparta. To produce such a formidable army, Sparta created an educational system that would take in young boys as young as seven years old and train them in the art of war until they graduated and joined the army . This system was called agoge and conditioned these children both physically and mentally to prepare them for the battlefield. ​300​ have done a great job capturing this ancient Spartan tradition. After Leonidas is checked for deformities, the film time jumps to the future, when he is around seven years old. Two soldiers forcefully take him away from his mother, who is prevented from pursuing him. The way Snyder portrayed Leonidas' mother highlights what a difficult time the agoge is for a Spartan mother. She cries and screams Leonidas' name but she cannot pursue him because a soldier holds her back, putting the audience in a state of empathy who can feel her pain. The agoge subjected young boys to extreme measures to teach them discipline, obedience to authority, and athletic prowess. They were often deliberately starved to build mental strength, but also encouraged to steal food from the dining hall to teach them to be sneaky. Unfortunately, if caught they were punished severely, usually by flogging, but if done correctly it taught children the skills of spying and sneaking. “To prevent their [agoge boys] from being too distressed by hunger, even though he [the agoge magistrate] did not allow them to take what they wanted without problem, he allowed them to steal something for satisfy their hunger. »Being cunning and sneaky on the battlefield was an important Spartan ideal. Stealing food was a way to strengthen these skills, and they would rely on these skills to help them gain their right of passage. A Spartan soldier's rite of passage was an event that marked his transition from child to adult citizen of the state. ​300​ depicts the right of passage as a young Spartan boy's task of killing a giant wolf. The film shows Leonidas alone in the snow-capped mountains, using the resources around him to survive in the harsh weather. Using all the skills he learned from the agoge, he manages to kill a wolf and returns as champion. This depiction of a Spartan boy's rite of passage contrasts directly with ancient writing. While 300expressed the right of passage as a noble test of bravery and courage, it was in reality a dark and dreadful tradition that the Spartans nicknamed "the killing of the Helots." The Helot were a class of unfree workers who were treated unkindly by the Spartans. According to Plutarch, “The magistrates [Ephors] sent the most discreet young men [Spartans] into the countryside, equipped only with daggers and the necessary provisions. During the day, they dispersed into dark, secluded places, where they hid and remained quiet. But during the night they went out on the roads and killed all the helots they caught. In 300, it's laughable when Stelios defiantly tells one of Xerxes' ambassadors, "Run." Go tell your Xerxes that he is facing free men here, not slaves. Sparta was one of the greatest slave city-states, so it is absurd that they had the audacity to say that free men stood against tyrants while they exercised unjust tyranny over the regarding helots at the national level. Snyder exaggerated the respect for the Spartans. This was done in order to please the public. When presented with a main protagonist, audiences prefer that they contain minimal flaws because they represent the ideal, the “hero” in one way or another. So it wouldn't be wise to expose one of Sparta's biggest flaws in a film honoring the character. three hundred. However, this does not do justice to those whom the Spartans abused. Snyder strove to make the Spartans great and noble while making the Persians evil, and achieved this by focusing on the physical ugliness of the Persians. However, it would have been much more emotional if it had added at least part of the fate of the Helots and therefore let the audience decide for themselves whether or not there were any good guys in ​300​, rather than just labeling the Spartans as good and the Persians as bad. The Spartan government was the entity that developed a warrior culture and made it the first priority of ancient Spartan society. The Ephors were instrumental in spreading a militaristic mentality in ancient Sparta. The Ephors were five male magistrates selected annually from each territorial colony of Sparta. Contrary to the belief of most scholars that the Ephors were directly democratically elected by the populace, they were in fact chosen by sheer luck in an annual drawing of lots. “The kingships were hereditary, while the ephorates. . .came, Plato tells us, "close to being an ascribed power" and appears to have been assigned either by drawing lots from a large group of elected officials or by some other similar procedure. Once in power, the most important role of the 9 Ephors was the implementation of public policies. “They [the ephors] could introduce laws, decrees and declarations of war and peace.” The ephors wielded almost completely uncontrolled power. The laws they made governed the state and no one was above the law, not even kings. Kings who questioned the authority of the ephors would be imprisoned or threatened with death. Making an example of kings and showing that even kings were not above the laws of the state served as an example to every citizen of Sparta that the rule of law was absolute and no one could overturn it. question. Part of the law stipulated that every man had to serve in the army and join the agoge at the age of seven. The ephors enforced these laws with death threats and these threats promoted the obedience of the Spartan people to the government. The subordination of civilians to the Spartan government gave them)..