The doomed stand of 300 Spartan warriors against the Persian Empire at Thermopylae in 480 B.C.E.—the subject of Zack Snyder’s 2006 film 300—has been particularly influential for figures ...

This bronze figurine of a Spartan warrior is from the sanctuary of Apollo Korythos in Messenia, in the south of the Peloponnese. It was made around 550 to 525 B.C., a few decades before Sparta’s ...