Director Zack Snyder's 300 (airing on SYFY this month) remains a standout piece of his filmography, an operatic action epic based on one of the most famous battles in the history of the ancient world.

An efficient military machine in almost every other ... Each year the ephors, or magistrates, chose the 300 best hoplites in Sparta to become the hippeis—elite soldiers who formed the king ...

In the Battle of Thermopylae of 480 BC an alliance of Greek city-states fought the invading Persian army in the mountain pass of Thermopylae. Vastly outnumbered, the Greeks held back the enemy in ...