Helpful Hints for the Spartan Man or I Went to See "300" and All I Got Was This Dumb Blog Post

Warrior culture made it impossible for a guy from Sparta to be just a guy from Sparta. He must, instead, be a SPARTAN MAN! His abdominal muscles must be chiseled, his chest heaving, his thighs powerful enough to climb the completely vertical face of any mountain. A SPARTAN MAN!, before he becomes a SPARTAN MAN!, is first ripped from the tender arms of his beautiful SPARTAN MOTHER! at the age of seven, and then shortly thereafter sent naked into the snow with only his spear and wits to aid in his survival. Said survival necessitates killing a huge, fanged, frothing-at-the-mouth beast so that he can, of course, return to warrior camp with his belly full of the animal's meat and his body draped in its warm fur. This is how you become LEONIDAS, KING OF SPARTA!

But on to my helpful hints. And by helpful hints, I mean that if the SPARTAN MEN! had followed my advice they might have been able to defeat the million-strong armies of Asia (about that: must the "armies of Asia" always be depicted as grotesque, hedonistic, dirty fighters? I'm thinking, too, of "Lord of the Rings" and the way Legolas was constantly whispering that something horrific "stirs in the East").

Ahem. Helpful hints:

1) Stop admiring one another's "fine thrusts."
2) Stop discussing the "Hot Gates" and pointing at them with sticks on your make-believe sand map.
3) "Fine thrusts" and "hot gates" can only serve to distract SPARTAN MEN!
4) Leather jockey shorts, red capes, and sandals? Fellas, that is not a substitute for armor.

I'm so glad I got all that off my chest. In closing, I will leave you with my favorite dialogue exchange:

King Leonidas to badly wounded SPARTAN MAN!: I hope that little scratch hasn't made you completely useless.
Badly Wounded SPARTAN MAN!: No Sir! It is just an eye!

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