(Minor Spoilers) Spectacular recreation of the historic battle of the Thermopylae Pass in 480 b.c that had a contingent of 300 Spartan Warriors, together with another 700 Greek volunteers, hold off the entire might of the Persian Army numbering as much as 500,000 battle harden soldiers. With the Persian hoards sweeping into Northern Greece the Greek Parliament, consisting of some dozen city or nation states, can't seem to get it's act together and form a unified front, spending most of it's time bickering to who's to lead a untied Greek armed force into battle.
King "Heart of a Lion" Leonidas,Richard Egan,of the Spartans takes charge of the defense of his beloved Greece by getting his army of Spartan Warriors on the march to the valley of Thermopylae in order to establish defensive positions in an attempt to hold off the enemy. In what's to become a number of bloody and vicious rear-guard actions. There's also young Phylon, Barry Coe, a brave young Spartan who suffered disgrace when it was discovered that his father Grellas, Yougos Moutsios, was in the enemy camp and is suspected of being a spy for the hated Persians.
kicked out of the Spartan Army for his father's misdeeds Phylon together with his girlfriend Ellas (Diane Baker),who opted to go into exile with him, plans to rejoin his Spartans comrades in battle even it kills him. Ellas a young woman with a family of, unlike Phylon's, good standing in the Athens Greek community comes back together with her patriotic boyfriend to fight and die for a free and democratic Greece despite the fact that he may very well be put to death by King Leonidas for doing so. It turns out that Phylon not only redeems himself in combat which was really no surprise to anyone, including the strict and by the books King Leonidas, but that his dad Grellas was later discovered to be a double-agent for the Greek nation. Grellas came back to the Spartan camp with vial information about the Persian army's tactics and troop movements that greatly helped in slowing down it's almost unstoppable advance.
The brave Spartans holding off attack after attack by the far superior, in numbers, Persians has their leader King Xerxes, David Farrar, pulling his beard out. Having has his most elite and crack army unit the so-called "Immortals" get the living sh*t kicked out of them by the far less numerous Spartans leads a frustrated King Xerxes to about to call it quits. Savin face King Xerxes falsely tells his people that he just got an express letter from the God's telling him to cool it and back off from the plucky Spartans and fight them another day, if not year, if at all. It's only later with the help of a sleazy Greek traitor the scuzzy mountain goat-man Ephialtes (Kieron Moore), who also tried to rape the sweet and innocent Ellas, that King Xerxes Persian army gets the drop on King Leonidas' Spartans by using a secret passage, that Ephialtes revealed to King Xerxes , to outflank the brave and courageous Greeks and force them into a circle where there were all, to the very last man including King Leonidas himself, shot and run through with wave after wave of deadly Persian spears and arrows.
The battle of the Thermopylae Pass ended in defeat for the 300 Spartans and their some 700 Greek allies with almost all of then ending up killed and those few that were captured ended up, if not executed by King Xerxes' men, sold into slavery. To even things or the score up King Leonidas' Spartans took over 20,000 of King Xerxes' best fighters along with them. It wasn't that long after the Spartan defeat at Thermopylae that the Greek people rallied and united around the exploits of bravery and self-sacrifice of the now fabled 300 Spartans and their martyred leader King Leonidas. That sacrifice inspired the Greeks in a series of bitter and bloody battles against overwhelming odds to drive the Persian armies out of civilized Greece and into Barbarian Asia. Within just one hundred years in was little Greece, not big bad Persia,that was destined to become, under Alexander the Great, the only country in recorded history to actually conquer and rule the entire world or the world known by European man to exist at that, the 4th century b.c, time.
King "Heart of a Lion" Leonidas,Richard Egan,of the Spartans takes charge of the defense of his beloved Greece by getting his army of Spartan Warriors on the march to the valley of Thermopylae in order to establish defensive positions in an attempt to hold off the enemy. In what's to become a number of bloody and vicious rear-guard actions. There's also young Phylon, Barry Coe, a brave young Spartan who suffered disgrace when it was discovered that his father Grellas, Yougos Moutsios, was in the enemy camp and is suspected of being a spy for the hated Persians.
kicked out of the Spartan Army for his father's misdeeds Phylon together with his girlfriend Ellas (Diane Baker),who opted to go into exile with him, plans to rejoin his Spartans comrades in battle even it kills him. Ellas a young woman with a family of, unlike Phylon's, good standing in the Athens Greek community comes back together with her patriotic boyfriend to fight and die for a free and democratic Greece despite the fact that he may very well be put to death by King Leonidas for doing so. It turns out that Phylon not only redeems himself in combat which was really no surprise to anyone, including the strict and by the books King Leonidas, but that his dad Grellas was later discovered to be a double-agent for the Greek nation. Grellas came back to the Spartan camp with vial information about the Persian army's tactics and troop movements that greatly helped in slowing down it's almost unstoppable advance.
The brave Spartans holding off attack after attack by the far superior, in numbers, Persians has their leader King Xerxes, David Farrar, pulling his beard out. Having has his most elite and crack army unit the so-called "Immortals" get the living sh*t kicked out of them by the far less numerous Spartans leads a frustrated King Xerxes to about to call it quits. Savin face King Xerxes falsely tells his people that he just got an express letter from the God's telling him to cool it and back off from the plucky Spartans and fight them another day, if not year, if at all. It's only later with the help of a sleazy Greek traitor the scuzzy mountain goat-man Ephialtes (Kieron Moore), who also tried to rape the sweet and innocent Ellas, that King Xerxes Persian army gets the drop on King Leonidas' Spartans by using a secret passage, that Ephialtes revealed to King Xerxes , to outflank the brave and courageous Greeks and force them into a circle where there were all, to the very last man including King Leonidas himself, shot and run through with wave after wave of deadly Persian spears and arrows.
The battle of the Thermopylae Pass ended in defeat for the 300 Spartans and their some 700 Greek allies with almost all of then ending up killed and those few that were captured ended up, if not executed by King Xerxes' men, sold into slavery. To even things or the score up King Leonidas' Spartans took over 20,000 of King Xerxes' best fighters along with them. It wasn't that long after the Spartan defeat at Thermopylae that the Greek people rallied and united around the exploits of bravery and self-sacrifice of the now fabled 300 Spartans and their martyred leader King Leonidas. That sacrifice inspired the Greeks in a series of bitter and bloody battles against overwhelming odds to drive the Persian armies out of civilized Greece and into Barbarian Asia. Within just one hundred years in was little Greece, not big bad Persia,that was destined to become, under Alexander the Great, the only country in recorded history to actually conquer and rule the entire world or the world known by European man to exist at that, the 4th century b.c, time.