Free men fight harder

[ILikeYourCoat]

Interesting statement on youtube, by someone who responded to persianguyagain, who put a clip on youtube stating that 300 is racist:

"larkydozer The Spartans were better than the Persians, but only somewhat so. Free men fight harder. Read "Carnage and Culture" by Victor Davis Hanson."

I wonder if that's one reason the Spartans won, because they had something more valuable to fight for, their freedom. The armies of Xerxes were subjugated, so they didn't much care one way or another who won the battle. They'd still be subjugated in either case.

 

[WeeZiTe]

Leonidas said something to that effect in the movie.. That his men fought harder then Xerxes slaves because his men had something to fight for. I don't remember the exact line.

 

[Qoèlet]

Leonidas said something to that effect in the movie.. That his men fought harder then Xerxes slaves because his men had something to fight for. I don't remember the exact line.

I don't think that was quite what he said: He did say "Soon, they'll fear my spears more than your whips", indicating that Xerxes's troops only fought because they were afraid of him. He also said that he would die for any of his men, whereas Xerxes would sacrifice any of his.

Mostly though, the film gives one the impression that the Spartans did so well because they were just plain better fighters. The other Greeks had probably "more" freedom than the Spartans (that is to say, their city-states weren't practicing eugenics by killing babies with imperfections, and all of their citizens weren't forced into constant military service from ages 7-30, and probably weren't by many accounts considered backward and totalitarian by their peers), but they were treated in a fairly dismissive manner. As far as the film was concerned the non-Spartans at Thermopylae were cowards and cannon fodder, so I don't really think it's making an argument about the effectiveness of a citizen soldier, although that's been argued elsewhere (ie: with respect to the citizen armies of revolutionarie France fighting off the royalist forces from surrounding countries). The Spartans' effectiveness in 300 is pretty much easily attributed to how their military training has been fetishized pretty well ever since Thermopylae.