>>20653432The Achamenid empire was basically the total opposite of how it's portrayed in the movie. The Spartans were an actual barbaric slave society constantly in fear of being killed by the 80% helot population (equivalent of Gulfie meme states today), while the Persians had genuine support and loyalty from their largely autonomous ethnic satrapies with freedom of movement and safety. The Greeks didn't see themselves as a nation but rather a confederation of related peoples (at least until the Peloponnesian wars and then Macedon homogenized them as Hellenic culture spread out).
Also the Greeks literally lost at Thermopylae lol, they "won" the wars largely because the Greeks agreed to the same terms that the Persians had already been putting forward - specifically that Ionian cities would continue as Persian satraps but be autonomous (something that was already agreed on bilaterally between the Ionian and Persian delegations since the end of the Ionian revolt decades earlier.
