Come take them!

In case you are blind, in which case you wouldn't be reading this blog; or you absolutely have no interest in movies, in which case I have no interest in you, I decided to refresh my memory of history on the upcoming graphic novel adaptation of '300' the film about the battle at Thermopylae. Most of the time I find the truth about what happened more interesting than the movie based on it. Anyways, for those historians among you who would like some ammo to throw at your friends in the theater, here's some interesting facts.
First of all, for my wife, the battle of Thermopylae was a battle between Persia and the Greeks. Now, at the time, the Greeks weren't really a country but a gathering of city-states that kind of banded together to fight off Xerxes of Persia. Sparta was one of these city states. So when you hear Sparta, they are talking about Greeks. Anyway, Xerxes and his million man march were headed toward Athens to expand his empire into Europe from Asia. But not the '80s mellow band. The two forces met at a pass in central Greece where 300 Spartans (hence the name of the film) and 700 Thespians (not these guys but people from Thespia) held off an invading army of Persians numbering somewhere between 200,000-1 million (estimates vary). Herodotus, the father of history, actually places the number somewhere closer to 5 million. After 3 days of fighting (3 days!), the Greek King Leonidus I, drew his men back onto a hill where a rain of arrows finished off the lot. It is said that the final few men were fighting 'with teeth and arm'.
The final casualty estimates were in the neighborhood of 1000 for the Greeks (everybody) and 20,000-80,000 for the Persians. At the worst that means a kill ratio of 80 Persians for every Greek/Thespian. It's recorded that Leonidus said to his wife Gorgo before he left that he knew he would not return and thus chose men who had already fathered children to go.
When told to surrender his arms by Xerxes, Leonidus replied in the heat of the moment (not the Asia song), "Come take them."
This story would probably have fallen by the wayside if the Persians had won the war (after all, they did win the battle, though at a cost) but since there isn't a country named Persia anymore, I guess we know it was worth it.
Men like Leonidus of Sparta, even if hyped by history, makes me proud to be a man. This is the type of man every man should try to be.