The sequel to 300 lives up to its predecessor’s reputation, with more than enough blood, gore and sex to sooth the most fervent of fans. What set apart the first 300 movie was its manipulation of historical events to create a box office spectacle of the grandest kind. But the salient points of the last stand at Thermopylae were entirely accurate – Ephialtes may not have been a hunchback, but he sure as hell betrayed the Greeks, so much so that his name became a synonym for “nightmare”. Bearing that in mind, how does “Rise of an Empire” stack up to 300 when it comes to real history? Let’s take it step by step.

Characters

Themistocles

“Rise of an Empire’s” replacement for Leonidas is one of the mocked “boy-lover” Athenians, Themistocles.

In the movie: Themistocles led the Athenians into battle at Marathon ten years earlier, leading a surprise attack on the disembarking Persian forces of King Darius – Xerxes’ father. He even shoots the arrow that fells the king of Persia himself. Themistocles leads the charge to unite Greece in order to face the Persian threat. At the Battle of Salamis he smashes the Persian fleet and slays Artemesia, the enemy commander.

In truth: Themistocles was one of the subordinate generals leading the Athenian army at Marathon. He was by no means its leader. That title went to Miltiades, a dethroned tyrant whom the Athenians entrusted to defeat the Persians. Themistocles played no part in killing Darius – because neither Darius nor his son Xerxes were anywhere near Marathon at the time. The Greek cities were too small a prize at the time for the king himself to deal with. Defeat at Marathon, of course, changed that.

Themistocles was no doubt instrumental in forming the league of Greek city-states that went to battle at Salamis. He also was the founder of the Athenian navy, securing the construction of hundreds of ships in a remarkably short span of time. He led the fleet brilliantly into battle at Salamis and elsewhere during the Persian Wars. However, once again, he did not kill Artemesia as “Rise of an Empire” tells us. Sadly, the brave cavalry charge over and under the roiling waters of Salamis is no so much a fiction as it is a wet dream.

Artemesia

Eva Green plays the most Persian of femme fatales, a bloodthirsty, slave-driving, double-bladed, vengeful, curse of a woman.

In the movie: Artemesia cultivates a hatred of the Greeks after her family is slaughtered by hoplites and she is whored by them until well into her teens. She develops her skills at the Persian court after one of Darius’ emissaries saves her. Soon she becomes Darius and Xerxes’ most trusted commander.

She leads the fleet in the Greek campaign. Defying Xerxes’ orders to be cautious, she takes the fleet into Salamis, nearly smashes Themistocles’ fleet (after trying to sleep with him, of course), and then watches the Persian navy meet its doom at the hands of Sparta and the resurgent Greeks coming to the rescue. She dies with a blade thrust through her stomach by, guess who? Themistocles.

In truth: Little is known about her, but Artemesia was most definitely not a captured slave who worked her way up the ladder after getting a lucky break. In fact, she was a queen.

The Persians had not much of a navy of their own, so they drew upon the fleets of all the subordinate kings of their empire. Artemesia was but one of them, albeit the only female. Far from commanding the entire fleet, though, Artemesia brought perhaps as little as five ships to join the Persian armada – according to Herodotus. She didn’t die at Salamis – a battle she told Xerxes they shouldn’t fight, not the other way around. Artemesia is said to have survived by smashing through one of the Persians’ own ships – though, apparently, nobody told Xerxes. He gave her a full set of Greek armour as reward for her cowardice.

The Battle

In the movie: Sparta’s queen refuses to send its fleet to join the united navy. Themistocles’ inadequate navy therefore bravely confronts the Persians day after day while Leonidas holds out at Thermopylae. They are facing a force of thousands of ships, against which their own fleet pales in comparison. The armada is manned by “farmers” and “tradesmen” untested in war. Against the odds, the ships hold out against Artemesia’s wrath until, finally, she undoes the Greeks with burning tar, causing them to flee with a bare handful of boats left.

At Salamis, Themistocles rouses the Greek navy to make their own last stand, with a battleplan you know is just made for the big screen – send all the ships screaming towards the center of the line, where Artemesia can be killed, thus throwing the Persians into disarray. As the tiny Greek force looks to be on the verge of annihilation, surrounded and being cut down by Persians on all sides, salvation arrives in the form of Sparta’s ships and those of other Greek allies. The reinforcements take the Persians in both flanks and the day is won.

In truth: Salamis truly was a momentous victory. It forced Xerxes to flee back to Asia and played a huge apart in the eventual defeat of the Persians. However, “Rise of an Empire” makes almost no attempt to maintain the historicity of the battle. Nothing, I repeat, nothing happened the way it did in this admittedly fantastic movie.

To understand the significance of Salamis, we must understand how the Persians came to Greece. As seen on screen, they crossed an enormous ‘pontoon bridge’ over the Hellespont, the strait that divides Europe from Asia. Such a bridge is built by tying hundreds of boats to the shore on either side and laying planks atop them. Even a layman can see that this is a rather fragile means of transport.

Xerxes needed a massive fleet to ensure the Greeks could not attack this bridge and cut him off from his empire in Asia. Such an event would be a catastrophe. The Persian army would be stranded and civil war might ensue back home.

Did the Spartans hold back their fleet from the resistance? Most certainly not. Spartan ships were present throughout the campaign. Together, the Greeks fought Xerxes’ navy to a standstill at Artemisium while the Battle of Thermopylae raged on land. However, when Leonidas fell their strategy was ruined, and Themistocles withdrew his fleet to the bay at Salamis. He did not withdraw, as the movie tells us, after his ships were burnt and battered beyond recognition by the Persian fleet. As a matter of fact, the battles at Artemisium were inconclusive and the Persians had no clear advantage. Themistocles pulled back his navy because the allied strategy depended on defense both at Artemisium and the Hot Gates.

With the Spartan rear guard gone, his position was compromised, and Salamis was to be the new base of operations. The odds were stacked against the Greeks, but not as heavily as one might think. The Persians, after losing a third of their fleet to storms and another 200 ships at Artemisium, now only outnumbered the Greeks by 100 ships – not the advantage of thousands described in “Rise of an Empire.”

As mentioned, Artemesia did not hastily rush the Persian ships into battle against Xerxes’ wishes – firstly, she didn’t command much more than her own squadron in the armada; secondly, she told Xerxes that seeking battle was a bad idea. But the God-King insisted, and so it began. Not how it played on screen, though. Not at all.

Themistocles sent a hoax defector to tell Xerxes that the Greek coalition was falling apart. Sheltered in the straits of Salamis lay the Greek armada. All Xerxes needed do to win, he said, was to enter the protected waters and wait to attack the fleeing ships. This played to Xerxes ego, and he authorised such a plan.

It was a trap, of course. The next day, the Persian fleet entered headlong into the strait’s eastern end, while a small contingent went round to block the western entrance. However, the Greeks were fully prepared – the Persians found no ships rushing to surrender or escape as they’d expected, and now a true battle was on hand.

In the exceptionally narrow straits, the Persian fleet’s numbers counted for nothing. Their boats congested the channel and could not manoeuvre, while the Greeks rammed and cut them to pieces from all sides. Artemesia escaped, but the Persian fleet was vanquished while Xerxes watched (tearfully, one presumes) from his throne on the shore.

So, there was no “boo-hoo!” moment when the Greek ships suddenly appeared on the horizon to save their comrades. All of Greece’s ships were already at Salamis, waiting for the Persians to waltz into their lair. A massive victory – but a far different one than told in the theatre. Yet the writers did indeed put an approximation of the true Salamis into their movie – you would recognise the similarities to the scene early on when the Persian boats chase their enemies into the fog, suddenly finding themselves trapped in a narrow channel and attacked on all sides. The movie scene, while clearly inspired by history, is set at the wrong time, taking place before the retreat to Salamis had occurred.

Epilogue

“Rise of an Empire” shows Xerxes turning away in disgust from the spectacle before him. Such a moment is easily imagined, for we know what happened next. Xerxes fled from his army, the massive force of a hundred nations he had brought into Europe. The king rode back into Asia and away from the disaster that was quickly coming down upon his host.

On closer inspection, this seems strange. On land, Xerxes had not yet been defeated. The losses at Thermopylae were, in the grand scheme of things, irrelevant, and the loss of his ships did not impair his army – now in occupation of most of the Greek mainland. However, as stated earlier, it was not outright defeat he feared as much as he seemed to fear not being able to escape from such a defeat. Leonidas had disabused him of the notion that his army was invincible. Now, the Greek fleet could easily destroy the bridge at the Hellespont. Xerxes could not allow himself to be stranded in Europe, far from the center of his empire, where machinations and rebellious strands could cause his realm to slip from his hands too quickly. So he fled, and, sure enough, the following year, his great army was also destroyed by the Greeks – at Plataea, led by the Spartans, just as the original 300 stated.

Why, though, is this movie titled “Rise of an Empire”? Which empire is it talking about? The Persian Empire? No. The Athenian Empire. What the movie doesn’t tell you is what came after Salamis and Plataea. The Spartans, having saved Greece, went back home. Athens, however, seized the moment, attempting to gain control over a myriad of Persian territories far from the city, while dominating its neighbours nearer to home. The Persian Wars would drag out for half a century, and gave Athens dominion over almost the entire Aegean coast and more. Athens grew fabulously rich, and the world’s first democracy became the Western world’s first true empire – irony at its best.