The film and the book 300 is told in a way that is clearly meant to portray the Spartans as worth emulating, with certain flourishes, embellishments and flat-out lies yielding a very unrealistic portrayal of the real thing; yet plain as day it shows them engaging in two actions that do resemble the things they did to their fellow polities.

One is the kicking of the Persian ambassador into the well. Killing an ambassador, or an official messenger of any sort, is the most stupidly un-diplomatic thing you could possibly do, because the message is "no more diplomacy, only war". The Kwarezmid Empire learned the hard way why that was a bad idea, after they killed the Mongol messengers.

The other is when Leonidas -- supposed to be the good guy in this film -- tells Ephialtes he can't serve the Spartans because he can't raise his shield high enough to be in the shield wall. Tells him to scram, even though the guy knows about the vulnerable goat path behind the Spartan line. Sorry, fuck you, bye. Where does he go? To the persians, who treat him real nice.

Keep in mind that the actual Spartans had armor-carriers, baggage handlers, camp servants and the like, partly as their attempt at logistics, partly because the Spartiates were so indolent and pampered that they literally didn't want to produce anything or be useful in any way besides fighting. Probably didn't even know how to wipe their butts without making a Helot do it. So in real life, Ephialtes should have been able to find a lower position where he could still serve and feel like he was contributing.

Then again, considering how the Spartiates treated every class below them, maybe this wasn't much of a draw for poor Ephialtes after all.

But still -- Leonidas tells him he's not good enough, so the guy runs to the enemy, with the knowledge of the secret unlocked door in the wall, so to speak.

Spartan treatment of...anyone...in that time period wasn't much more intelligent than that, because the Spartiates who were supposed to do diplomacy had been raised in a childhood-soldier-indoctrination bootcamp where you got the most praise for stepping on other people to win. So Spartan diplomats usually thought they had to crush other people in order to get what they wanted. They had no idea how to do actual diplomacy, so they infuriated everyone they ever worked with by being a pack of moronic assholes.

Culminating in the Spartans losing all Greek allies and relying on the Persians.

Whoops.

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