300-2: Rise of an Empire 🎥 2014 Movie Info

Plot Summary

Queen Gorgo of Sparta narrates about the Battle of Marathon, in which King Darius of Persia was killed by Themistocles of Athens. Darius’s son, Xerxes, witnesses his father’s death and is advised to never wage war against the Greeks. Darius’s naval commander, Artemisia, persuades Xerxes to become a god and sends Xerxes on a journey through the desert. Xerxes reaches a cave and bathes in an otherworldly liquid, emerging as a “God-King”. He returns to Persia and declares war on Greece to avenge his father. As Xerxes’ forces advance towards Thermopylae, Themistocles meets with the council and convinces them to provide him with a fleet to engage the Persians at sea.

Themistocles travels to Sparta to ask King Leonidas for help but is informed by Dilios that Leonidas is consulting the Oracle, and Gorgo is reluctant to side with Athens. Themistocles reunites with his old friend Scyllias, who infiltrated the Persian troops, and reveals Artemisia was born Greek but defected to Persia after her family was murdered by Greek hoplites. A Persian emissary took her in and trained her, and she eventually rose to become a naval commander.

Themistocles also learns that Leonidas has marched to fight the Persians with only 300 men. Themistocles leads his fleet of fifty warships and several thousand men, which include Scyllias, Scyllias’s son Calisto, and Themistocles’ right-hand man Aeschylus to the Aegean Sea, starting the Battle of Artemisium. They ram their ships into the Persian ships and attack them before retreating. The following day, the Greeks feign a retreat and lead the Persian ships into a crevice, where they become stuck. The Greeks attack the Persian ships from the cliffs above. Impressed with Themistocles, Artemisia brings him onto her ship and attempts to seduce him to rally the Persian side as her second-in-command, but he refuses her offer.

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