XERXES By Darius KADIVAR:
From interview with Mr. Darius KADIVAR
This sad trend is being continued in a new Spartan-centric film about the Battle of Thermopylae ( Warner Bros 300 ), which is factually flawed to the point of being downright offensive. The movie’s logline claims it retells the account of how three-hundred Spartan soldiers drew the line in the sand, defending democracy against Xerxes’ million-man army. The numbers are laughable and the premise of the story is backwards. It implies that Xerxes was attempting to enslave Greece under Persian tyranny. Wrong. The war was initially sparked by what was viewed by the Persians as an unprovoked attack against the empire, perpetrated by the Athenians. Furthermore, according to Herodotus himself, the Persians supported democracies in the northern Hellas, while the Spartans imposed oligarchies.
In fact, I believe, had Greece allied itself with Persia, democracy might have flourished faster, because the grueling Pelopponesian War, fought between Sparta and Athens, would have been averted. Sadly, it wasn’t. The Spartans prevailed, overthrew the ‘democratic’ Athenian leadership and replaced it with…that’s right…an oligarchic regime. Please visit: http://www.payvand.com/news/07/mar/1199.html
