Sparta as a bastion of freedom?

Rating: 1/10 (20 March 2007)

300 goes out of its way to depict Sparta as a bastion of freedom and liberty--a characterization which anyone familiar with Greek history (including ancient Greek scholars themselves) knows to be untrue.
Sparta was a great place to be for Spartan citizens, but the vast majority of the city's population were non-citizens. Only those who could trace their lineage to the city's original inhabitants could claim themselves as "Spartans" and thus enjoy the full range of freedoms available. The remainder, who quickly came to outnumber the "Spartans" in Sparta, were forced to live as a perpetual underclass serving the whim of the Spartans until the city fell.
To the extent that the film portrays the Persian empire as wicked in its reliance on slaves, it is laughably hypocritical and, for some, outright offensive.