Truth About Thermopylae
An objective review of the movie 300, subtitled The story behind Frank Miller’s ’300′:
Nevertheless, with its digital scenery, its monstrous villains, its muscular, superheroic Spartans, and its Matrixesque high-speed camerawork, 300 is a genuine spectacle, for good and ill. It creates a lurid phantasmagoria of Thermopylae, a fascinating, bizarre hallucination which concentrates the mind on the Three Hundred’s brutal fate–as well as the drama of free men choosing to fight and die to oppose a tyrant’s army.
Those interested in how the movie compares to what actually happened should read it.
For those really interested, I recommend Last Stand of The 300 on the History channel. You will get an understanding as to just how pivotal this battle really was.
Otherwise, you can try this 4-minute video on the History Channel’s site. Some of the “facts” differ from those in the documentary, and the sound was a little garbled for me. Still, fairly interesting.
Or one might read Herodotus.