300:fact or fiction?

It's true, better late than never, so here is my post, late, but here!

Okay, so most of us have at least heard of the movie 300, if not watched it. Intense, right?
But as awesome as it is, the movie wrongly depicts the battle of Thermopylae.

In the movie, the battle raged on for an intense three days, however in actuality the Greeks held off the opposing Persian army for seven days, three of which were the battle, which is what the movie basically revolved around. In the actual battle, as well as the movie, the Greeks are betrayed by Ephialtes, who helps the Persians route around the Greeks, which the Greeks then realize. Personally, i think this is where the idea of "300" comes in, and here's my theory why:
When the Greeks realize they are in fact out flanked by the Persians, Leonidas, the king of sparta and the leader of the army dismisses the majority of the army, except for 300 spartans (see?) , 700 Thesbians and 400 Thebians.

You might in fact be wondering (if you are completely unaware of the history),
"wait, i thought the battle was fought with only three hundred soldiers?" Nope. In it's entirety, there were roughly 7000 soldiers, and not all of them were spartans. The seven thousand were made up of men from sparta and allied city states.
So, the movie basically showcases the spartans, they are purposely portrayed as the best. Contrary to this, the persians are depicted as heathens, or evil monsterous beings with no valor, which is entirely untrue.
Also, in actuality, the Spartans believed in slavery, however in the movie, they constantly talk about how all men are free, and there was no evidence of slavery at all.

The movie does have it's accuracies, though. First, there was the betrayal mentioned earlier, which was a huge help to the Persians. Then, there was an excellent depiction of the Greek heroic code, and women, who were valued in the greek society and viewed almost as equals in society played a very large role in the movie, supporting the men they were associated with (husbands, lovers...you get the idea) and not being shown as objects.

Now that the comparison is out of the way, here's a little extra info on the battle:
The battle was actually a delayed response to the defeat of the first persian invasion of Greece. Xerxes, the leader of the Persians wasn't all too happy with this, and had bided his time building up a giant army and navy in order to conquer all of Greece. (his army was thought to number somewhere in the millions). The battle of thermopyale is debatably one of the most famous in Europe's history.

After the battle, the body of leonidas was recovered by the Persians, and Xerxes, being ridiculously angry, ordered Leonidas's head cut off and his body crucified (Ew, gruesome.) But this was quite uncommon for the Persians. Normally they regarded "valiant warriors" with honor and tribute.