300: Rise of an Empire

The oracle's words

stand as a warning.

A prophecy.

"Sparta will fall. All

of Greece will fall."

And Persian fire will

reduce Athens to cinder.

For Athens is a pile of stone

and wood and cloth and dust.

And as dust, will

vanish into the wind.

Only the Athenians

themselves exist.

And the fate of the world hangs

on their every syllable.

Only the Athenians exist.

And only stout wooden

ships can save them.

Wooden ships...

And a tidal wave of heroes' blood.

Leonidas, my husband...

Leonidas, your king...

Leonidas and the

brave 300 are dead.

The free men and women of Greece

are not bound by a

beautiful spartan death.

War is not their love.

Yet he lay down his life for them.

For the promise Greece holds.

'Tis our enemies who

forged our freedom

in the fires of war.

It was king Darius who

came to take our land.

Ten years ago,

when youth still

burned in our eyes,

before this bitter war forced

our children to become men.

Ten years ago,

this war began as all wars begin:

With a grievance.

Marathon.

The Persian king, Darius,

annoyed by the notion

of Greek freedom,

has come to Greece

to bring us to heel.

He makes landfall at

the field of marathon

with an invading force which outnumbers

the Greek defenders three to one.

And so at dawn, the hopeless

Athenians do the unthinkable.

They attack.

They attack the weary Persians

as they disembark their ships

on shaky legs after a month at sea.

They attack before they can establish

their war camp and supply their soldiers.

And who is the architect

of this mad strategy?

A little-known Athenian soldier.

His men call him Themistokles.

He gives the Persians a taste

of Athenian shock combat.

All thoughts of glory are gone.

Thousands dead.

Hundreds of them their own.

All for an idea:

A free Greece...

An Athenian experiment

called "democracy."

Could this idea be worth it?

Worth all this sacrifice?

Themistokles would let the

good king Darius decide.

For through the chaos

a moment appeared.

And Themistokles would seize it.

A moment that would ring

across the centuries.

A moment that would raise

him from simple soldier

to the height of Athenian

political power.

No!

A moment that would make

Themistokles a legend.

Yet even as the praise and

glory were heaped upon him,

Themistokles knew in his

heart he had made a mistake.

It was Darius's son, Xerxes,

whose eyes had the stink

of destiny about them.

Themistokles knew he should

have killed that boy.

That glorious mistake

would forever haunt him.

And so it was Themistokles himself

who sent a ripple across

the Persian empire

and set into motion forces that would

bring fire to the heart of Greece.

For as the good king lay dying,

all his greatest

generals and advisors

were summoned to his bedside.

None greater than his finest

naval commander, Artemisia.

Her ferocity bested

only by her beauty.

Her beauty matched only by

her devotion to her king.

Darius favored Artemisia

among his generals

for she had brought him

victory on the battlefield.

In her, he had the

perfect warrior protge

that his son Xerxes would never be.

So sweet, my child.

My sweet...

Child.

Father.

Xerxes.

Do not repeat your

father's mistake.

Leave the ignoble

Greeks to their ways.

Only the gods can defeat them.

Only... the gods.

For seven days, Xerxes mourned...

Paralyzed by grief.

On the eighth day,

Artemisia whispered

the seed of madness

that would consume him.

Your father's words

were not a warning...

But a challenge.

Only the gods can

defeat the Greeks?

You will be a God-king.

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