300: Rise of an Empire (2014)

The American epic film, 300: Rise of an Empire (2014), directed by Noam Murro and written by Zack Snyder and Kurt Johnstad, retells the story of the Battle of Marathon. During this battle, King Darius of Persia is killed by Themistocles of Athens. Witnessing his father’s death, Darius’s son Xerxes is advised to avoid war with the Greeks. However, Artemisia, Darius’s naval commander, convinces Xerxes to become a god and sends him on a journey through the desert. After bathing in a mystical liquid in a cave, Xerxes emerges as a ‘God-King’ and declares war on Greece to seek revenge for his father’s death. As Xerxes advances towards Thermopylae with his army, Themistocles persuades the council to provide him with a fleet to fight the Persians at sea. Seeking further help from Sparta, Themistocles finds that King Leonidas is consulting the Oracle while Queen Gorgo is hesitant to ally with Athens.

Themistocles is reunited with his old friend Scyllias, who had successfully infiltrated the Persian troops. It is revealed that Artemisia, once a Greek, had defected to Persia after her family was tragically harmed by Greek hoplites. Despite her past, she rose in rank and became a naval commander under the Persians. Furthermore, Themistocles learns that Leonidas has bravely marched to fight the Persians with only 300 men. In response, Themistocles leads his fleet of fifty warships and several thousand soldiers – including Scyllias and his son Calisto as well as Themistocles’ trusted aide Aeskylos – to the Aegean Sea for the start of the Battle of Artemisium. Employing a strategic approach, they ram their ships into the Persian vessels before retreating. The next day, they cleverly lure a group of Persian ships into a narrow crevice where they become trapped. From above on the cliffs, the Greeks launch a surprise attack on the stranded enemy ships.