300: The True Story Of King Leonidas' Spartans

Produced by People Profiles and published on the Odyssey channel, this documentary recounts the life of King Leonidas I of Sparta and the campaign of 480 BC. Relying primarily on Herodotus, it sets out the dual monarchy of Sparta, the Great Rhetra attributed to Lycurgus, and the roles of the Gerousia and the five ephors. It explains the training of Spartan boys in the agoge, the krypteia, and the division between full citizens, the free perioikoi, and the helots.

The narrative follows the sixth-century formation of the Peloponnesian League and the reign of Leonidas' half-brother Cleomenes I, including his interventions in Athens, his feud with his co-king Demaratus, and his death around 489 BC, when Leonidas married Cleomenes' daughter Gorgo and succeeded to the Agiad throne. It then outlines the rise of Achaemenid Persia under Cyrus II, Cambyses II, and Darius I, the Ionian Revolt, and the 490 BC campaign at Marathon.

The second half covers Xerxes' preparations for the 480 BC invasion, the bridging of the Hellespont, Themistocles' expansion of the Athenian navy, and the Greek coalition formed at the Isthmus of Corinth. Cyprus is mentioned only in passing when listing the subject contingents of the Persian fleet alongside Phoenicians, Egyptians, and Asian Greeks (at 0:35:52). The video then reconstructs the three days of fighting at Thermopylae, the flanking march of Hydarnes and the Immortals along the Anopaea path guided by Ephialtes, the final stand of Leonidas, and the subsequent Greek victories at Salamis, Plataea, and Mycale, closing with the later reception of Leonidas.