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Messenger: Choose your next words carefully, Leonidas. They may be your last as king.
King Leonidas: [to himself: thinking] "Earth and water"?
[Leonidas unsheathes and points his sword at the Messenger's throat]
Messenger: Madman! You're a madman!
King Leonidas: Earth and water? You'll find plenty of

both down there.
Messenger: No man, Persian or Greek, no man threatens a messenger!
King Leonidas: You bring the crowns and heads of conquered kings to my city steps. You insult my queen. You threaten my people with slavery and death! Oh, I've chosen my words carefully, Persian. Perhaps you should have done the same!

Messenger: This is blasphemy! This is madness!
King Leonidas: Madness...?
[shouting]
King Leonidas: This is Sparta!
[Kicks the messenger down the well]

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Spartan King Leonidas: Spartans! Ready your breakfast and eat hearty... For tonight, we dine in hell!

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Stelios: It's an honor to die at your side.
King Leonidas: It's an honor to have lived at yours.

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Queen Gorgo: Do not be coy or stupid, Persian. You can afford neither in Sparta!
Messenger: What makes this woman think she can speak among men?
Queen Gorgo: Because only Spartan women give birth to real men!

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Daxos: I see I was wrong to expect Sparta's commitment to at least match our own.
King Leonidas: Doesn't it?
[points to Arcadian soldier behind Daxos]
King Leonidas: You there, what is your profession?
Free Greek-Potter: I am a potter... sir.
King Leonidas: [points to another

soldier] And you, Arcadian, what is your profession?
Free Greek-Sculptor: Sculptor, sir.
King Leonidas: Sculptor.
[turns to a third soldier]
King Leonidas: You?
Free Greek-Blacksmith: Blacksmith.
King Leonidas: [turns back shouting] SPARTANS! What is YOUR profession?

Spartans: HA-OOH! HA-OOH! HA-OOH!
King Leonidas: [turning to Daxos] You see, old friend? I brought more soldiers than you did!

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300

Persian: A thousand nations of the Persian empire will descend upon you. Our arrows will blot out the sun!
Stelios: Then we will fight in the shade.

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300

King Leonidas: This is where we hold them.
[pause]
King Leonidas: This is where we fight!
[pause]
King Leonidas: And this is where THEY DIE!
Captain: On these shield, boys!
Spartans: AU!
King Leonidas: Remember this day, men, for it will be yours for all time!

Persian General: [the Persian general advances from the crowd of the Persian warriors on horseback] SPARTANS! Lay down your weapons!
[pause]
King Leonidas: [one of the Spartan men throws a spear directly at the Persian general, killing him; he falls from his horse dead] PERSIANS!
[the Spartans get into their shielding position]

King Leonidas: COME AND GET THEM!
Captain: [the angry Persian soldiers start charging towards the Spartans] HOLD!
King Leonidas: Give them NOTHING! But take from them EVERYTHING!
Captain: STAY READY!

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[as arrows rain down on the Spartans, Astinos begins laughing hysterically]
Stelios: What the hell are you laughing at?
Astinos: Well, you had to say it!
Stelios: What?
Astinos: "Fight in the shade"!
[both laugh]

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Xerxes: Come Leonidas, let us reason together. It would be a regrettable waste. It would be nothing short of madness for you, brave king, and your valiant troops to perish. All because of a simple misunderstanding. There is much our cultures could share.
King Leonidas: Haven't you noticed? We've been sharing our culture with you all morning.

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[Dilios is putting a patch over his eye]
King Leonidas: Dilios, I trust that "scratch" hasn't made you useless.
Dilios: Hardly, my lord, it's just an eye. The gods saw fit to grace me with a spare.

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Dilios: "Remember us." As simple an order as a king can give. "Remember why we died." For he did not wish tribute, nor song, nor monuments nor poems of war and valor. His wish was simple. "Remember us," he said to me. That was his hope, should any free soul come across that place, in all the countless centuries yet to be. May all our voices whisper to you from the ageless stones,

"Go tell the Spartans, passerby, that here by Spartan law, we lie."

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300

Dilios: "Goodbye my love." He doesn't say it. There's no room for softness... not in Sparta. No place for weakness. Only the hard and strong may call themselves Spartans. Only the hard, only the strong.

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300

King Leonidas: You have many slaves, Xerxes, but few warriors. It won't be long before they fear my spears more than your whips.

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Queen Gorgo: Spartan!
King Leonidas: Yes, my lady?
Queen Gorgo: Come back with your shield, or on it.
King Leonidas: Yes, my lady.

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[last lines]
Dilios: And so my king died, and my brothers died, barely a year ago. Long I pondered my king's cryptic talk of victory. Time has proven him wise, for from free Greek to free Greek, the word was spread that bold Leonidas and his three hundred, so far from home, laid down their lives. Not just for Sparta, but for all Greece and the promise this country holds.


[takes his spear from a soldier]
Dilios: Now, here on this ragged patch of earth called Plataea, Xerxes's hordes face obliteration!
Spartan Army: HA-OOH!
Dilios: Just there the barbarians huddle, sheer terror gripping tight their hearts with icy fingers... knowing full well what merciless horrors they suffered at the swords and spears

of three hundred. Yet they stare now across the plain at *ten thousand* Spartans commanding thirty thousand free Greeks! HA-OOH!
Spartan Army: HA-OOH! HA-OOH! HA-OOH!
Dilios: The enemy outnumber us a paltry three to one, good odds for any Greek. This day we rescue a world from mysticism and tyranny and usher in a future brighter than anything we can imagine.

[puts on his helmet]
Dilios: Give thanks, men, to Leonidas and the brave 300! TO VICTORY!
[the Greek army roars and charges]

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King Leonidas: Spartans! Prepare for glory!
Daxos: Glory? Have you gone mad? There is no glory to be had now! Only retreat, or surrender or death!
King Leonidas: Well, that's an easy choice for us, Arcadian! Spartans never retreat! Spartans never surrender! Go spread the word. Let every Greek assembled know the truth of this. Let

each among them search his own soul. And while you're at it, search your own.

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Xerxes: But I am a generous god. I can make you rich beyond all measure. I will make you warlord of all Greece. You will carry my battle standard to the heart of Europa. Your Athenian rivals will kneel at your feet if you will but kneel at mine.
King Leonidas: You are generous as you are divine, O king of kings. Such an offer only a madman would refuse. But

the, uh, the idea of kneeling, it's- You see, slaughtering all those men of yours has, uh, well it's left a nasty cramp in my leg, so kneeling will be hard for me.

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Spartan King Leonidas: [his last lines] My Queen! My wife. My love...

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Xerxes: It isn't wise to stand against me, Leonidas. Imagine what horrible fate awaits my enemies when I would gladly kill any of my own men for victory.
King Leonidas: And I would die for any one of mine.

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Dilios: Immortals... we put their name to the test.