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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 March 2016
One of the final images of Zack Snyder's 2006 box-office-hit film, 300, is of Leonidas, the Spartan king, lying dead on the ground surrounded by his fellow Spartans, having been shot to death by a vast number of Persian arrows. The camera pans over the bruised and bloodied Spartan dead until it finally comes to rest on Leonidas himself, his arms spread out in a gesture that curiously imitates the iconography of the crucifixion of Christ. Whether done explicitly or not, this is not the only time in its reception history that the story of Leonidas’ last stand has been linked with Christ's sacrifice on the cross, or with Christianity more generally. In this article, I will explore some aspects of the story of the battle of Thermopylae's reception by the Carthaginian Christian poet Dracontius.
1 Zack Snyder based his film on Frank Miller's graphic novel of the same name (first published in a five-issue mini-series in 1998, later reprinted in a single volume in 2001). Many of the stills of the film closely echo Miller's images. Miller, in turn, was inspired by Rudolph Maté's 1962 film The 300 Spartans (see M. George, [ed.], Frank Miller. The Interviews. 1981–2003 [Seattle, WA, 2003], 65). For discussions of the films and the graphic novel, and the interactions between them, see M. S. Cyrino, ‘“This is Sparta!”: The Reinvention of Epic in Zack Snyder's 300’, in R. Burgoyne (ed.), The Epic Film in World Cinema (New York, 2011), 19–38; E. Fairey, ‘Persians in Frank Miller's 300 and Greek Vase Paintings’, in G. Kovacs and C. W. Marshall (eds.), Classics and Comics (Oxford, 2011), 159–72; L. Fotheringham, ‘The Positive Portrayal of Sparta in Late Twentieth-century Fiction’, in S. Hodkinson and I. M. Morris (eds.), Sparta in Modern Thought. Politics, History and Culture (Swansea, 2012), 393–428; Holland, T., ‘Mirage in the Movie House’, Arion 15 (2007), 173–81Google Scholar; G. Nisbet, ‘“This is Cake-Town!”: 300 (2006) and the Death of Allegory’, in Hodkinson and Morris (this note), 429–58; S. Turner, ‘“Only Spartan Women Give Birth to Real Men”: Zack Snyder's 300 and the Male Nude’, in D. Lowe and K. Shahabudin (eds.), Classics for All. Reworking Antiquity in Mass Culture (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2009), 128–49; V. Tomasso, ‘Gorgo at the Limits of Liberation in Zack Snyder's 300 (2007)’, in M. S. Cyrino, ed., Screening Love and Sex in the Ancient World (New York, 2013), 113–26.
2 This similarity has been noted by other critics also. Cyrino (n. 1), 33, in her study of the film, states: ‘The camera pans slowly upward from his corpse, surrounded by his slain brothers-at-arms, to reveal his arms spread wide and his head fallen to one side in a pose reminiscent of artistic depictions of the crucifixion of Christ: here 300 intensifies the redemptive affect with a clear visual echo of the Christ-like death tableau of the executed [William] Wallace at the end of Braveheart. Like the two earlier epic film heroes, Maximus [the protagonist of Ridley Scott's Gladiator (2000)] and Wallace, Leonidas is brutally yet heroically sacrificed to preserve his closest friends and family and to underscore his personal honor, but most importantly, his violent death delivers and liberates his entire people.’ Turner, (n. 1), 141, in her discussion of the film's relationship with the male nude, writes the following: ‘Leonidas, the only man with his eyes open, lies centrally framed and spread-eagled in the shape of a cross: the recognisable, if somewhat clichéd, spectacle of a crucified saviour.’ Turner also makes mention of St Sebastian, a Christian martyr, who since the Renaissance has been represented in art semi-nude and pierced with arrows. It is also worth noting here the comparison that Origen makes between Christ and Leonidas in his defence of the faith against Celsus: see Origen, C. Cels. 2.17.
3 The phrase ‘Spartan mirage’ was first used as the title of François Ollier's Le Mirage spartiate, 2 vols. (Paris, 1933–43), which dealt only with Sparta's influence on the rest of Ancient Greece. Subsequently, E. N. Tigerstedt's The Legend of Sparta in Classical Antiquity, 3 vols. (Stockholm, 1965–78) expanded its ambit to the entire classical world. See also, for example, the title of a volume of essays on Sparta: A. Powell and S. Hodkinson (eds.), Sparta Beyond the Mirage (Swansea, 2002).
4 E. Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought (Oxford, 1969), 95.
5 Ibid., 95–8; see, for example, Joseph, AJ 12.225–7; Joseph, Ap. 1.162 ff., 1.168, 2.257, 2.280 ff.; Philo, Moses, 2.2–4.
6 Rawson (n. 4), 95–8.
7 A good place to start is ibid., 99–115; see also P. Cartledge and A. Spawforth, Hellenistic and Roman Sparta. A Tale of Two Cities (London, 2002).
8 See e.g. Krebs, Christopher, ‘Leonides Laco quidem simile apud Thermopylas fecit: Cato and Herodotus’, BICS 49 (2006), 93–103Google Scholar, specifically on Cato's use of the Herodotean version of events, as well as the more popular general survey in P. Cartledge, Thermopylae. The Battle That Changed the World (London, 2006), 155–75. I have yet to see C. Matthew and M. Trundle (eds.), Beyond the Gates of Fire. New Perspectives on the Battle of Thermopylae (Barnsley, S. Yorks., 2013).
9 Translation from D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Valerius Maximus. Memorable Doings and Sayings, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 2000).
10 On the debates over the purposes, uses, and readership of Valerius’ text, see D. Wardle (ed. and tr.), Valerius Maximus. Memorable Deeds and Sayings. Book I (Oxford, 1998), 12–15.
11 Lucian, Rhet. Praec. 18; M. Winterbottom (ed. and tr.), Seneca the Elder. Declamations, 2 vols. (Cambridge, MA, 1974), 506, n. 1.
12 Rawson (n. 4), 116.
13 A. Merrills and R. Miles, The Vandals (Oxford, 2010), 221. This is, perhaps, an over simplification of Dracontius’ theological leanings within the poem. However, a full-scale account of Trinitarian doctrine within his oeuvre is beyond the scope of this article.
14 On the literary milieu in which he wrote, see J. W. George, ‘Vandal Poets in their Context’, in A. H. Merrills (ed.), Vandals, Romans and Berbers. New Perspectives on Late Antique North Africa (Aldershot, 2004), 133–43; Merrills and Miles (n. 13), 204–27; Edwards, M. J., ‘Dracontius the African and the Fate of Rome’, Latomus 63 (2004), 151–60Google Scholar. On the De laudibus Dei and Satisfactio, see C. Moussy and C. Camus (eds. and trs.), Dracontius. Oeuvres, Tome I. Louanges de Dieu, livres I et II (Paris, 1985); A. H. Merrills, ‘The Perils of Panegyric: The Lost Poem of Dracontius and its Consequences’, in Merrills (this note), 145–62; A. Arweiler, ‘Interpreting Cultural Change: Semiotics and Exegesis in Dracontius’ De laudibus Dei’, in W. Otten and K. Pollmann (eds.), Poetry and Exegesis in Premodern Latin Christianity. The Encounter between Classical and Christian Strategies of Interpretation (Leiden, 2007), 147–72. The best in-depth discussion in English of Dracontius’ secular poems is still D. F. Bright, The Miniature Epic in Vandal Africa (Norman, OK, 1987); however, see also more recently the relevant chapters of A. M. Wasyl, Genres Rediscovered. Studies in Latin Miniature Epic, Love Elegy, and Epigram of the Romano-Barbaric Age (Kraków, 2011).
15 Merrills and Miles (n. 13), 220–1.
16 See ibid., 213–19; C. O. Tommasi Moreschini, ‘Roman and Christian History in Dracontius’ De Laudibus Dei’, in J. Baun, A. Cameron, M. Edwards, and M. Vinzent (eds.), Studia Patristica 48 (Leuven, 2010), 304.
17 Arweiler (n. 14), 147.
18 Accounts of Menoeceus’ self-sacrifice (devotio) to secure Thebes’ victory are found in Eur. Phoen. 913, 930; Apollod. 3.6.7; and Paus. 9.25.1; as well as Stat. Theb. 10.755, 790, which is clearly Dracontius’ source (Statius ostendit; LD 3.262). see also Vessey, D. W. T. C., ‘Menoeceus in the Thebaid of Statius’, CPh 66 (1971), 236–43Google Scholar.
19 Codrus, the king of the Athenians, in order to save the city, and in accordance with a Delphic oracle, allowed an enemy to kill him; see Val. Max. 5.6 ext. 1; Cic. Tusc. 1.116.
20 The translation is my own. For the text of Dracontius, I have used C. Moussy (ed. and tr.), Dracontius. Tome II. Louanges de Dieu, Livre III. Reparation (Paris, 1988, repr. 2002).
21 See e.g. P. J. Stylianou, A Historical Commentary on Diodorus Siculus Book 15 (Oxford, 1998), 49.
22 Orosius may very well have been Dracontius’ principal source for the exemplum: see R. Simons, Dracontius und der Mythos. Christliche Weltsicht und pagane Kultur in der ausgehenden Spätantike (Munich, 2005), 123, n. 182. The central thesis of Simons’ monograph is similar to that outlined in this article; in it, she argues that Dracontius condemns pagan virtues leading to self-destruction and disaster, in opposition to Christian virtues leading to salvation. Here my approach – which is complementary to hers – is more to stress the novelty of Dracontius’ interpretation in the reception history of the Battle of Thermopylae specifically.
23 See e.g. the remarks of Simons (n. 22), 120 ff., who also notices strong parallels between this passage and the Cyzicus episode in Valerius Flaccus (3.32); Moussy (n. 20), 82. As Flower, M. A., ‘Simonides, Ephorus, and Herodotus on the Battle of Thermopylae’, CQ 48 (1998), 374CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has noted, in Diodorus’ account, ‘night favours the Greeks and daylight the Persians’; however, night is seen positively in his account. In Herodotus, in contrast, this is reversed, although both make much of the light/day dichotomy, no doubt in imitation of their epic models (see ibid., 373–6). For more on the day/night theme in Dracontius, see Roberts, M. L., ‘The First Sighting Theme in the Old Testament Poetry of Late Antiquity’, ICS 10 (1985), 139–55, esp. 152–4Google Scholar.
24 Thuc. 7.44.1 ff. On nyktomachia, see especially K. Dowden, ‘Trojan Night’, in M. Christopoulos, E. D. Karakantza, and O. Levaniouk (eds.), Light and Darkness in Ancient Greek Myth and Religion (Lanham, MD, 2010), 110–20.
25 On the Persian custom of incestuous marriage, see e.g. Tert. Apol. 9.16; Tert. Ad nat. 1.16; Min. Fel. 31.3; Catull. 90.3–4.
26 Compare, however, M. Clarke, ‘Spartan atē at Thermopylae? Semantics and Ideology at Herodotus, Histories 7.223.4’, in Powell and Hodkinson (n. 3), 65, who suggests that ‘doubt or ambivalence about the “glorious chance” is already a reality for the author of our earliest surviving account of the battle, and that this ambivalence hinges on the difference between the causal logic of Leonidas’ own self-sacrifice and that of his followers’.
27 Translation from A. De Sélincourt, Herodotus. The Histories (London, 2003).
28 Clarke (n. 26), 69–70; see also E. Baragwanath, Motivation and Narrative in Herodotus (Oxford, 2008), 64–78.
29 Clarke (n. 26), 70.
30 Ibid., 72.
31 Simons (n. 22), 119–20.
32 Simons (n. 22), 119–20; 137. On suicide, and self-killing more generally in ancient literature and thought (as well as for contrasting views among pagans and Christians), see A. J. L. Van Hoof, From Autothanasia to Suicide. Self-killing in Classical Antiquity (London, 1990); T. D. Hill, Ambitiosa Mors. Suicide and Self in Roman Thought and Literature (New York, 2004); A. Van Hoof, ‘From Voluntary Death to Self-murder: The Dialogue on Self-killing between Antiquity and Christian Europe’, in J. Hilton and A. Gosling (eds.), Alma Parens Originalis? The Receptions of Classical Literature and Thought in Africa, Europe, the United States, and Cuba (Frankfurt am Main, 2007), 269–88.
33 Simons (n. 22), 115.
34 Tommasi Moreschini (n. 16), 307.
35 The essay is quoted in full in L. McDonald (ed.), Florence Nightingale's Theology. Essays, Letters, and Journal Notes (Waterloo, Ontario, 2002), 225–30. See also M. D. Calabria, Florence Nightingale in Egypt and Greece. Her Diary and ‘Visions’ (Albany, NY, 1997), 142–4.