300

I have decided to celebrate the new trailer for 300,a movie due next year about the Spartans by summarising Herodotus, and paraphrasing Simonides, in a limerick.

Leonidas' Royal Guard at Thermopylae
Met Xerxes' challenges stroppily.
The passer-by heartens
To "Go tell the Spartans,
Though dead we lie here we died properly."

Leonidas' nobility has always been a little tarnished for me by the fact that he told the helots that they were staying to die with their masters when he dismissed the rest of the army.

Luvvies should be delighted though that the Thespians stayed with the Spartans for their heroic last stand.