Essentially true story of how Spartan king Leonidas led an extremely small army of Greek Soldiers (300 of them his personal body guards from Sparta) to hold off an invading Persian army now ...

By James Hibberd Writer-at-Large The Zack Snyder film from 2006 — which marked Butler’s breakout role, playing the fearsome Spartan King Leonidas — was apparently quite war zone on set.

The graphic novel and the movie tell the true story of King Leonidas I (Gerard Butler), the King of Sparta who fought in the Greco-Persian Wars in the Fifth Century BCE, roughly 2,500 years ago.

It was a suicide mission, designed to detain the Persians just long enough for the rest of the Greek allies to gather their forces. Led by King Leonidas, the Spartans heroically held the Persians ...

Xerxes waited for 10 days for King Leonidas to surrender or withdraw but left with no options he pushed forward. After 3 days of battle all the Greeks were killed. The Spartan defeat was not the ...