Disrespect. This is why Leonidas of Sparta's 300 killed the messenger of Xerxes in the film adaptation of the comic book, 300. No other reason. The messenger spoke in an impolite manner, plain and simple, within the walls of a peaceful people whom loved life and treated others with respect and kindness. People whom sewed the seeds every season and harvested every other season. People who raised children and loved each other. The very walls that were erected after they were forced upon them by those outside. The King himself ended the messenger and not even bothering to use a subject of his. The king put his foot on that very messenger's heart and pushed him into the eternal pit where all dark things belong, including a Xerxes slave or follower or believer. Disrespect the Spartans my dear Xerxes and you are ended.
No. It has nothing to do with disrespect whatsoever. For the Leonidas himself ended the messenger that would have been disrespect in and of itself. If one is a leader, it can not be an act of cowardice, of blatant murder, nor of hatred that sets the example at the top whatsoever. King Leonidas did not murder the Xerxes messenger at all. He didn't harm him nor torture him nor belittle him let alone insult him. In fact, he welcomed him unharmed into the walls of Sparta did he not? He opened the gates and said come on in man of Xerxes and show me what your people are like for I do not know you at this or that point with this or that attitude on this and that moment of life. Come before me and tell me what you hold dear. He didn't force the messenger to kneel, nor to bring gifts. The messenger stood face to face, heart to heart, with the Spartan's king himself, and honestly and forthcomingly heard what the king had to say and was heard directly by the leader of those people. But you see, before the Spartan king did not stand the king of Xerxes did he? And Sparta did not send a messenger into the Xerxes walls did they? Nor did the 300 Spartans assault any other people's lively hoods. The Spartans hadn't even stolen a ring of gold from Xerxes. But instead almost with a polite greeting and even a subtle smile King Leonidas wanted to even shake the hand of the Xerxes messenger. And then the messenger was sent tumbling into the pit to his doom.
Why? If it was not disrespect that King Leonidas felt, what was it? Was he angry? At what, the words? Would such a powerful and masterful warrior and father and husband and leader and man, would he merely kill out of anger? What sort of a leader would he have been then? Leonidas was neither disrespected, angry, bitter, remorseful, hateful, let alone bewildered nor amused. Watch that very sequence a few times before you read the rest and try to come up with your own answer given what you have read thus far. It's a much better exercise than reading the rest without understanding your own thinking. But as many will fail to do this and most will read on like zombies, and thus none of you can be leaders as a result, I will tell you flat out the simple truth. Leonidas was concerned of how to make the right plan in the coming days unrelated to the messenger. This is why he kicked him into the pit. As a musician, I often spend a lot of time coming up with song ideas. Just recently I heard Weird Al Yankovic's song Living In The Fridge. It blew my mind at how creative it was. Weird did not merely make a funny set of English language expressions, but he also chose the correct song to make the cover of. That takes a ton of musical skill, more than I ever understood. We all mock Weird and say that anyone can achieve that, but it is not the case. Would Living In The Fridge been just as good of a song if he chose Madonn's Ray of Light? Certainly, a fridge has a light bulb does it not? Or how about Phil Collins' In The Air Tonight? Certainly fridges can have odours. See, many songs could have worked. But Weird chose neither and none of the billions of songs we all know to exist out there. In fact, I would say the choice Weird made is akin to the choice Leonidas made. Weird spent a long time thinking, planning, writing, rewriting, recording, rerecording. And then he realized, none of these ideas are useful, and he tossed them in the trash like worthless attempts and found the right connection with the right artist whom gave him permission and whom did not mind and in fact welcomed the association with Weird. And now when I whistle Living In The Fridge people always think it's Aerosmith, but it's not. Similarly King Leonidas tossed away the messenger the way Weird threw away a draft or the wrong song choice. He realized the purpose of the messenger and went on his merry way.
A key ingredient in waging a fight, a war, or resolving a conflict, is winning your point, if you are that sort of a fellow. If you assaulted me over lunch money at school, it is in my interest to ensure you never do it again and so I will persuade all around me with my truth. But if you harmed me for no reason, then it is in your interest in persuading all others as well that I deserved it somehow for some reason. Usually the bully in this equation states that the victim started it when nobody was around to notice. Who could argue with that? He started it, so I taught him a lesson physically and financially, right? When the truth is the one speaking started it due to some personally justifiable reason and now is afraid of the social and other ramifications of their wrong deed. If the bully is stronger the people around will even agree with the bully for not agreeing results in being part of the victim circle and not part of the winning circle, which in this case is the loser's circle as in the loser is the one who assaulted the other and took their money. But a peer pressure bully-like culture of even modern North America is such that it considers the stronger one the winner - whether psychologically or physically stronger as is the case with abusive women or aggressive men. Similarly Xerxes' messenger was not a scout, nor a drone, nor a zombie. The messenger was one in a string of many during a long drawn out conflict that most likely Xerxes started long ago. So Spartans welcomed the messenger with open arms but also with some apprehension. The victim in this case is Sparta for Xerxes threw the first punch. The people of Sparta are kind souls and do not push others around. This is self-evident by the Xerxes wearing jewellery all over and seeming to need gold and metals more than the Spartans whom used of the Earth only that which they were forced to extract for self-protection and survival and not for glamour, luxury, nor selfish reasons. Spartans made swords not to take gold from Xerxes, for if they did, why did none of them decorate each other as lavishly as the Xerxes king did? Or did they have a cave like Smaaug where they hid all their stolen posessions and pretended to be king simple folk who loved exquisite festivals and social gatherings over self-gloating and glitziness? I doubt it, and I believe Spartans were victims from day one. And they had skirmishes here and there with Xerxes probably when their kids wandered, or when they were near in-between lands and so forth. And in fact, I bet Xerxes even contested aggressively the Spartans for metal ore and so forth and the Spartans fled far so as to avoid conflict. But as all those who need more and more and more for their own uses always seem to be, there is never the far enough place the Spartans always wished for. So they were forced to use Earth's ore to forge weapons. Even here the Spartans demonstrate efficiency unlike the Xerxes as they only needed an arsenal for three hundred warriors who were not even dedicated in this task but probably spent their days as caretakers of their societies such as via farming, engineering and so forth. While Xerxes' people were infested and inflicted with greed so severe they had thousands and thousands of dedicated soldiers whose sole task was the dark arts of hatred itself. And Xerxes still lost.
So why did he kill the messenger? When Leonidas noticed the tone, and the volume of hatred the mere messenger was spewing while in the invited walls of Sparta, he realized one important thing. And those of you taught to skim read and to skip to the last paragraph have now missed the important lessons looking for the answer, so here it is. He realized the same thing Weird realized. All his war plans were in error. Just like Weird's composing with a song he taught was the right one was in error and he had to start anew. Similarly, Leonidas was hoping somewhere Xerxes had peace in mind, somewhere his people and theirs were merely miscommunicating. Somehow peace could be had. Leonidas thought and made plans for many scenarios that involved peace and welcoming even the Xerxes king into his arms with peace in tow. But when the messenger spewed fire at the king Leonidas himself, that's when all the Spartans near also witnessed the other side only had one intention. The same as that of locusts. They wanted what Sparta had and they wanted it any way they could get it, even if it meant the butchery of the very children that Leonidas loved dearly. In fact, he didn't kick the messenger into the pit at all. He simply realized, if a mere messenger, like a pawn on a chess board, had this attitude, than the leader of those people, the very king, must have set that tone at the top, and therefore Xerxes himself absolutely had zero plans of peace and all of his time planning all those peaceful gestures and alternatives to actual war had been in vain just like Weird's wrong song choice. So King Leonidas kicked the wrong plans into the pit of doom and thus first yelled "THIS IS SPARTA!" to remind himself and all around what plan needed to be made from that very moment clear to all, including the 300 themselves. This is Sparta meant not that we are killers, like Xerxes, not that we are tough, like Xerxes, but that this is Sparta, my friends. We have never killed anyone, not even the very dirt we cherish as much as our children. This is Sparta, we took from the land only what we needed and yes a bit more for fun, but never like a disease, never like a mad lunatic would whom ravaged every land before him and destroyed anything in his path. This is Sparta was not a battle cry, it was to King Leonidas a wake up call that he was wasting his energy defending Sparta with fantasies that Xerxes was just as nice as he was, that Xerxes was intending peace but something got in the way. When the messenger fell Leonidas brilliantly formed a simple realization. And all the 300 immediately knew what it was. For a good king rules openly and honestly and thus it was pretty simple what Xerxes was up to.
The place where the 300 met the Xerxes army wasn't where Xerxes planned to meet the Spartans but was where the Spartans met the Xerxes and intercepted them. Xerxes had already sent his army. The messenger could move faster than the army for he was alone. Thus not dragged down by all the weapons and food and other overhead of any foot force. Thus the messenger's purpose was not to request peace at all. It was not to request a meeting. It was to give the Spartans the belief that Xerxes' army was not already on the approach. And thus to lull the good people into a false sense of security. But the messenger's hatred was apparent, and people with such hatred never desire peace. Thus the very presence of the messenger was treachery. And when Leonidas realized this, he knew that thousands of Xerxes could be anywhere between their kingdom and Sparta already and in fact they were already marching. The messenger rode ahead, and this was a stalling tactic. Kicking the belief of peaceful co-existence into the pit allowed King Leonidas to formulate a plan of where the Xerxes were traversing between their two kingdoms, and pick a few choke points. Then he made a wise decision and sent the three hundred right there to crush them in the Spartan's wall. Because Leonidas made the right choice, Xerxes failed and Spartans lived on. Had King Leonidas taken the messenger at face value and tried to send a peace convoy, the 300 would not have left Sparta, and Xerxes thousands would have arrived, and then even that land would have lost its simple bits of metal, and then been deserted like any Xerxes depleted territory. In fact, if Leonidas did not build that wall with the 300 Spartans, all the kingdoms beyond Sparta would have had to deal with the locusts as well and perhaps would have fallen even faster than his realm would have had he bought into the peace offering and surrendered to Xerxes. So King Leonidas killed the messenger because the King realized he was wasting his time planning for peace when the other side never under any circumstance had the attitude required for it ever to exist from day one. Leonidas kicked him and yelled "THIS IS SPARTA" so all remember - we are not in their village, we are not asking them to bow to us, this is who we are, this is why we must win.
THIS IS SPARTA!!!
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