‘This is Sparta!’ screams Leonidas (Gerard Butler) in 300, before he kicks a hapless Persian into a well. Based on Frank Miller’s popular graphic novel of the same name, 300 tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae, where a small Spartan-led force took on the behemoth of the Persian empire (and lost). Directed by Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead), 300 has been well received by audiences in the United States, where it took over US$70 million on its opening weekend. With a slick, computer-polished look, a strong cast (including Australia’s David Wenham) and plenty of beheadings and eviscerations, it’s a solid package for action audiences. If this is Sparta, we obviously like it here. 

But this wasn’t always so. For many centuries Sparta was alien, foreign, the strange old uncle you didn’t talk about. The modern West likes to trace its roots to classical Athens—to the home of democracy, philosophy, tragedy and the fine arts. In Socrates’ city, we see the virtues we hope to embody in our nation states and in ourselves: equality, tolerance, depth of poetic and artistic feeling, and reverence for life and land. The so-called ‘classical’ vision of the cosmos was one of harmony between individual and community, war and peace, physical prowess and intellectual endeavour—this was the Athenian ideal, and it is ours.