I am familiar with the Battle of Thermopylae, where Leonidas, a great military leader of Sparta (a nation of free men, being one of first city-states to abolish slavery at the time), gathers his personal bodyguard of 300 men to defend a narrow passage leading to their city from the oppressing Persian conqueror, Xerxes, believing himself to be a 'man-god'. Had Leonidas not been betrayed by an exiled citizen, his tactic of 'bottlenecking' Xerxes' troops into the narrow passage would have been successful, and most likely had forced Xerxes to retreat, allowing Leonidas to rally Spartan politics to give more support for harder defense for his return. Hence, was not so. Said traitor had shown Xerxes' military command a passage that allowed them to surprise the Spartan 300 from behind. Leonidas, with many other city-state armies fighting with him, bellowed them to retreat, staying behind with his own soldiers and only a handful others who refused to run. Most were killed, and Xerxes had captured the region and it's Spartan capitol, but not without cost: suffering massive losses at the hands of the Spartans, Xerxes was not able to hold control over the Greek nation, and fled to Asia with his troops, leaving the task of conquering Greece in his name to Mardonius, his leading military commander, only for him to be defeated at the Battle of Plataea. Ancient writer and modern historians have used the Battle of Thermopylae and these brave 300 Spartan soldiers as "an example of the power of a patriotic army of freemen defending native soil." (from Wikipedia.org)
I confess, I haven't read the graphic novel. I am a huge fan of comics and graphic novels. My favourite so far are a tie of two: The Watchmen (after seeing the movie, I defend that the graphic novel is much better) and Kingdom Come, taking place after The Justice League abandon their protective posts of our fair cities as the public rallies behind a new 'metahuman' named Magog kills villian The Joker while on his way to trial for the massacre at the Daily Planet offices, resulting in the death of many of Clark Kent's friends, including photographer Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane. Without the guidance of role models like the classic superheroes, the new age of 'metahumans' become more violent, territorial, resulting in a complete breakdown of social systems. The government threatens extreme action, and The Justice League is called back into action under an extremely stressful condition. As with Frank Miller's 300, I just haven't had a chance to read it quite yet. The movie, although Mr. Miller didn't really give it his blessing (shame!), was rather exceptional, and gave an interesting interpretation of the heroic Battle of Theropylae.
