My favourite scene for this is when Leonidas yells at the Greeks for not being professional soldiers, 'cos IRL some 400 of those would've been from Thebes, which not only also had a professional military, it had a larger and better trained one, and would already have defeated Sparta in battle multiple times by this point.
Ahhh so the Americans looking down on the Vietnamese, the Chinese, and the Taliban despite losing to them is actually glorious Western Culture (TM) inherited from the Greeks.
Essentially. And Thebes would later humiliate Sparta so thoroughly in a series of events bordering on slapstick that Thebes became the dominant power for a time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1x9np5fys8
Ahhh so the Americans looking down on the Vietnamese, the Chinese, and the Taliban despite losing to them is actually glorious Western Culture (TM) inherited from the Greeks.
Essentially. And Thebes would later humiliate Sparta so thoroughly in a series of events bordering on slapstick that Thebes became the dominant power for a time https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1x9np5fys8
Thebes had the secret weapon, which was higher than average amount of gay sex which made the soldiers bond with each other and fight harder.