Meet The Spartans was so much better than either of these movies combined, because it had it all!

Kicking popular culture foes down the well, pop culture references including Transformers, the quest to consult the "oracle", painted on abs, big 'ol man titties with rings through the nipples...hilarious.

South Park also took on 300 in the episode "THIS IS LESBOS!"

Themistocles was a badass in real life. Though he was from Athens and a trader/merchant, he was just about as low as you could get on the Greek totem pole without being a helot, and he rose to the rank of general and commanded one of the largest allied maritime battle fleets known in Grecian maritime martial history at the time. (271 Triremes) If it hadn't been for Themistocles' ability to convince people to work against a common threat, his acumen at amassing needed materials, and his leadership at the battle of Artemesium, along with an assload of good luck (that I cannot discount) in that a lot of Persian ships had been sunk in bad weather, the Greeks would have most assuredly lost the battle of Salamis.

The thing of it is, is that the Persian monarchy had a legitimate gripe with the Greeks with their invasion in that the Grecian government had supported several rebellions in Persian lands with both materials of war and troops. Thermopylae wasn't even the first attack by the Persians, but the second, and of course the only reason why the battle is so noteworthy is because of Leonidas and his three day "battle in the shade".

It's a shame that Greece became what it did, even the Spartan's strategy of forward attacks with no strategic retreats destroyed heir military standing in the Grecian world. Eventually, even the pride of the Spartan city-state, the Agoge, eventually became nothing more than a mere show out of tradition rather than anything else, cruel as it was.

At last we got the marathon out of it, and the poor guy that ran the first one of those dropped dead after delivering his message.

Molon labe.