"The part about the Spartans being much better fighters than the Persians is historically accurate"
It wasn't just that the Spartans were so much better than the Persians, but that pretty much all the Greeks were. I think it was about a hundred years earlier that Xenophon and "The Ten Thousand" were stranded in the middle of the Persian empire and manged to fight thier way out... They were mercenaries employed in a some sort of power struggle within the empire. Also, if I remember right while Alexander was conquering the Persian Empire awhile later the only serious opposition Emperor Darius could throw at him was greek mercenaries. And of course, as the end of "300" showed the combined Greek forces routed an army of Persian about 3x thier size at Platea later on...
Victor Davis Hanson has some pretty good books on the subject especially _The Western Way of War_ and _Carnage and Culture_.
re: "300"
It wasn't just that the Spartans were so much better than the Persians, but that pretty much all the Greeks were. I think it was about a hundred years earlier that Xenophon and "The Ten Thousand" were stranded in the middle of the Persian empire and manged to fight thier way out... They were mercenaries employed in a some sort of power struggle within the empire. Also, if I remember right while Alexander was conquering the Persian Empire awhile later the only serious opposition Emperor Darius could throw at him was greek mercenaries. And of course, as the end of "300" showed the combined Greek forces routed an army of Persian about 3x thier size at Platea later on...
Victor Davis Hanson has some pretty good books on the subject especially _The Western Way of War_ and _Carnage and Culture_.
Kyle