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300 Revisited project - Severus - 03-18-2008
Board members.
I am hosting an after school enrichment program where middle school students (11-14 year old) students will do research on the Persian Wars,
create their own presentation of the information, compare them to (EDITED!) parts of the movie "300" and then recreate the battle using miniatures.
I am chronicling our work in a blog http://300revisited.blogspot.com/
What I am looking for help with is. . .
Websites that kids in this age group could access and understand that deal with the Persian wars (weapons, figures, events, maps, equipment, navy, important figures)
I have some web sites but a lot of them are a bit too weighty for a 7th grade kid to want to read in a volunteer after school program.
Any help is greatly appreciated.
P.S. Sites that give a Persian perspective or Persian equipment would be great.
Matt Webster
Re: 300 Revisited project - ouragos - 03-18-2008
Have you looked at our sites - www.hoplites.org and www.4hoplites.com
There is a bit of Persian in the latter.
Re: 300 Revisited project - hoplite14gr - 03-18-2008
Please check
http://www.spartan-world.de/hoplites.html
if you click on heraldry you will see an accurate depiction of the 1st day of the battle plus a summary of shield devices easily digestible by children
again eaponry and shield devices
http://300spartanwarriors.com/battleoft ... ponry.html
plus lot of staff if they browse through.
and you can show thme pics from our site:
http://www.spartasmores.gr/index.files/Page2122.htm
You can ask my help any time
Kind regards
Re: 300 Revisited project - Susanne - 03-18-2008
Especially the pic where we try to re-enact a hoplite's departure................. oh wait, that's totally irrelevant for your needs.
EDIT: You could also show them the movie "Meet the Spartans".
Re: 300 Revisited project - A_Volpe - 03-18-2008
http://www.larp.com/hoplite/
8)
Good luck with the project.
Man, I wish I had a Hoplite kit, I'd be willing to come to your school.
Re: 300 Revisited project - Matthew Amt - 03-19-2008
Thanks, Andy, ya beat me to it! Not sure if this will help, but my Legio XX site has a page on stage gear:
http://www.larp.com/legioxx/stage.html
You might also start with my usual admonishment, that just about EVERYTHING in the movies is WRONG, and go from there. If something historical slips in by accident, that's just gravy. Actually, trying to learn history from total ignorance would be easier than trying to learn it from "300", but...
Khairete,
Matthew
Re: 300 Revisited project - qcarr - 03-22-2008
Matt (Webster),
What a fantastic experience for your students! Sure wish I was back in 7th grade...
While "300" is historically inaccurate, I think it's a great tool for capturing young teenagers' attention. Once they start learning about the actual Battle of Thermopylae and the Persian Wars, they'll find that real life was far more dramatic than the movie.
Our RAT colleagues have already recommended the sites that I would have suggested, but just wanted to express my appreciation for your project. Good luck!
Quinton
Re: 300 Revisited project - Strategos - 03-22-2008
Wow, I have to say that this project sounds very interesting.
Sadly, as I was in this age my History teacher handed us out nearly 100 worksheets on Athenian democracy , and said "this is for you, on each page there's a text, there are questions, read answer and learn."
No Persian wars, no Battles, and not even the Peloponesian war.......
I really envy your students!
Kind regards
Strategos
Re: 300 Revisited project - Timotheus - 03-27-2008
Quote:Thanks, Andy, ya beat me to it! Not sure if this will help, but my Legio XX site has a page on stage gear:
http://www.larp.com/legioxx/stage.html
You might also start with my usual admonishment, that just about EVERYTHING in the movies is WRONG, and go from there. If something historical slips in by accident, that's just gravy. Actually, trying to learn history from total ignorance would be easier than trying to learn it from "300", but...
Khairete,
Matthew
I am always amused that so many people miss the elegance of 300. The movie is NEVER supposed to be an actual history of the event.
If you remember in the movie it starts with the one-eyed Spartan telling a story to comrades then the very end of the movie is the Spartans at the battle of Plataea. The entire movie in between is nothing more than a rousing story being told by the one-eyed Spartan to his fellow soldiers to build them up before battle. The story even includes events that happen after the one-eyed Spartan has left the battlefield at the Kings request.
Basically the movie is no more accurate than a campfire story and never implies that it should be any more accurate than that.
Re: 300 Revisited project - Matthew Amt - 03-27-2008
Quote:I am always amused that so many people miss the elegance of 300. The movie is NEVER supposed to be an actual history of the event.
I am always amused that people continually miss the fact that, 1) I never said otherwise; 2) People always bring this up during a discussion of the HISTORICAL ACCURACY of the movie; 3) 90 percent of all viewers will assume that what they are seeing on the screen is true.
In the case of "300", yes, I have run into a few non-history-buffs that were puzzled by things like the Pleistocene war rhinos, or the not-quite-human Persians, etc., so I'm pretty sure they aren't taking the WHOLE movie as gospel. But I still run into ALL sorts of people who think movies such as this are good history, including teachers! And as one reviewer pointed out, "300" is going to be THE popular image of the Battle of Thermopylae for a generation or more. And that's sad. Comic books are fine, but anyone who thinks that they should be able to do such damage to history is probably on the wrong discussion board.
The original post concerned the use of the movie as part of a history assignment, not a film production class, so my comment was valid and pertinent.
I didn't see "300", by the way. Not only did I give up on "historical" movies after "Gladiator" (which was simply a bad movie, by the way, entirely aside from all the historical errors!), but not being a comic book fan I had no reason to see a comic book movie. It's amazing how many people give me grief for simply not wanting to see a movie!
Matthew
Re: 300 Revisited project - PMBardunias - 03-28-2008
Quote:The entire movie in between is nothing more than a rousing story being told by the one-eyed Spartan to his fellow soldiers to build them up before battle.
I can see why a one eyed Spartan might turn Persian Immortals into tolkienesque goblins. I can see how he might throw semi-mythical beasts into the fray. I can even understand why he might turn the Great King into a acromegalic hermaphrodite.
What I can't understand is why a Spartiate would turn the representative democratic portion of his government, made up of men who were friends and fathers of both his audience and himself in a cadre of disease-ridden, inbred freaks. This is NOT a believeable embellishment for the spartan tale teller, but an innapropriate intrusion of a conciet of Miller into the minds of his characters. The biggest casualty of that movie was the common perception of the spartan government (1 king?, That assembly- too young for the gerousia, too small for the commons), already pitiful since everyone believes that our current "democracy" is attributed to Athens. Overall a hard-flung dory to the heart of Lycurgus.
Quote:The story even includes events that happen after the one-eyed Spartan has left the battlefield at the Kings request.
Herodotus was not there either, but I'll stick with him.
Re: 300 Revisited project - Timotheus - 03-28-2008
Quote:Quote:The entire movie in between is nothing more than a rousing story being told by the one-eyed Spartan to his fellow soldiers to build them up before battle.
I can see why a one eyed Spartan might turn Persian Immortals into tolkienesque goblins. I can how he might throw semi-mythical beasts into the fray. I can even understand why he might turn the Great King into a acromegalic hermaphrodite.
What I can't understand is why a Spartiate would turn the representative democratic portion of his government, made up of men who were friends and fathers of both his audience and himself in a cadre of disease-ridden, inbred freaks. This is NOT a believeable embellishment for the spartan tale teller, but an innapropriate intrusion of a conciet of Miller into the minds of his characters. The biggest casualty of that movie was the common perception of the spartan government (1 king?, That assembly- too young for the gerousia, too small for the commons), already pitiful since everyone believes that our current "democracy" is attributed to Athens. Overall a hard-flung dory to the heart of Lycurgus.
Quote:The story even includes events that happen after the one-eyed Spartan has left the battlefield at the Kings request.
Herodotus was not there either, but I'll stick with him.
You dont understand why a solider would deride demean and insult a group of politicians who use a religious event as an excuse to hold back the entire army which in the end results in the King that the story teller loves and 300 of his friends in the army going off to fight a hopeless battle alone?
Re: 300 Revisited project - PMBardunias - 03-28-2008
Quote:You dont understand why a solider would deride demean and insult a group of politicians who use a religious event as an excuse to hold back the entire army which in the end results in the King that the story teller loves and 300 of his friends in the army going off to fight a hopeless battle alone?
No, and were you a Spartan, neither would you. When those Ephors are out of office at the end of their one year term and some Spartiate allied to your King's faction is in his place do they suddenly outbreed and get their boils cured? What about your father, grandfather or uncle when he served? Was he a decrepid monster?
Spartiates are not "soldiers", they are, to a man, nobles. The common class struggle that spawns the "them vs us" mentality of soldiers towards politicians is inapplicable to the slass of Spartiate who made up the Hippeis of a king.
You are also assuming that they saw the ephors as wrong. There is no reason be believe they did so. They went as, duty demanded, with their king. This doesn't make them overjoyed about missing the Karneia, a mainstay of their culture and calendar, and for many probably commining hubris against the gods.
Re: 300 Revisited project - Timotheus - 03-28-2008
Quote:Quote:You dont understand why a solider would deride demean and insult a group of politicians who use a religious event as an excuse to hold back the entire army which in the end results in the King that the story teller loves and 300 of his friends in the army going off to fight a hopeless battle alone?
No, and were you a Spartan, neither would you. When those Ephors are out of office at the end of their one year term and some Spartiate allied to your King's faction is in his place do they suddenly outbreed and get their boils cured? What about your father, grandfather or uncle when he served? Was he a decrepid monster?
Spartiates are not "soldiers", they are, to a man, nobles. The common class struggle that spawns the "them vs us" mentality of soldiers towards politicians is inapplicable to the slass of Spartiate who made up the Hippeis of a king.
You are also assuming that they saw the ephors as wrong. There is no reason be believe they did so. They went as, duty demanded, with their king. This doesn't make them overjoyed about missing the Karneia, a mainstay of their culture and calendar, and for many probably commining hubris against the gods.
You forget though. The storyteller as part of his story tells of how the Ephors allowed themselves to be bribed by the Persian agent. Once they accepted gold to create a pro-Persian divination they would have lost all respect and credibility in the eyes of the Spartan soldiers. Just like how no one cared that the queen commited murder once they discovered that the one politician had also been bribed. Honor was foremost in the eyes of Spartan soldiers, especially the story-teller who I am assuming is supposed to be the historical soldier who wasnt at the final battle and thus derided (wore the patched cloak and all) by his fellow Spartans for being a coward.
Re: 300 Revisited project - PMBardunias - 03-28-2008
Quote:You forget though. The storyteller as part of his story tells of how the Ephors allowed themselves to be bribed by the Persian agent. Once they accepted gold to create a pro-Persian divination they would have lost all respect and credibility in the eyes of the Spartan soldiers.
But this too is a fiction of Miller. Their reluctance was due, if not to religeous scruples, to a wish to fight at Corinth and not so far from their own lands.
Quote: Honor was foremost in the eyes of Spartan soldiers,
No honor, but fear. They had a prominant temple to her for this reason (another being to eros, for the love that binds brothers). Fear of failing to live up to the standards set forth by the rhetra and embodied by their fellows. This is why the Karneia is so important. These great civic/religious pageants were an element in the glue that held spartan society together.
Quote:especially the story-teller who I am assuming is supposed to be the historical soldier who wasnt at the final battle and thus derided (wore the patched cloak and all) by his fellow Spartans for being a coward.
As I recall there were two. One who hung himself and the other who went a bit berzerk at the opening of Plataea.