Dilios Quotes

"Remember us." As simple an order as a king can give. "Remember why we died." For he did not wish tribute, nor song, nor monuments nor poems of war and valor. His wish was simple. "Remember us," he said to me. That was his hope, should any free soul come across that place, in all the countless centuries yet to be. May all our voices whisper to you from the ageless stones, "Go tell the Spartans, passerby, that here by Spartan law, we lie."

Those behind cry, "FORWARD!" Those in front cry, "BACK!"

When the boy was born, like all Spartans, he was inspected.

Immortals... we put their name to the test.

His helmet was stifling, it narrowed his vision. And he must see far. His shield was heavy. It threw him off balance. And his target is far away.

Hundreds leave, a handful stay. Only one looks back.

Xerxes dispatches his monsters from half the world away. They're clumsy beasts, and the piled Persian dead are slippery.

"Goodbye my love." He doesn't say it. There's no room for softness... not in Sparta. No place for weakness. Only the hard and strong may call themselves Spartans. Only the hard, only the strong.

They have served the dark will of Persian kings for five hundred years. Eyes as dark as night... teeth filed to fangs... soulless. The personal guard to King Xerxes himself; the Persian warrior elite. The deadliest fighting force in all of Asia... the Immortals.

The Ephors choose only the most beautiful Spartan girls to live among them as oracles. Their beauty is their curse. For the old wretches have the needs of men... and souls as black as hell.

It's been more than thirty years since the wolf and the winter cold. And now, as then, a beast approaches; patient and confident, savoring the meal to come. This beast is made of men and horses, swords and spears. An army of slaves vast beyond imagining, ready to devour tiny Greece, ready to snuff out the world's one hope for reason and justice. A beast approaches.

The god-king has betrayed a fatal flaw: Hubris. Easy to taunt, easy to trick. Before wounds and weariness have taken their toll, the mad king throws the best he has at us. Xerxes has taken the bait.

Taught never to retreat, never to surrender. Taught that death on the battlefield in service to Sparta was the greatest glory he could achieve in his life.

The old ones say we Spartans are descended from Hercules himself. Bold Leonidas gives testament to our bloodline. His roar is long and loud.

We did what we were trained to do, what we were bred to do, what we were born to do!

The captain's cries of pain at the loss of his son are more frightening to the enemy than the deepest battle drums. It takes three men to restrain him and bring him back to our own.

It's been more than thirty years since the wolf and the winter cold. And now, as then, it is not fear that grips him, only restlessness. A heightened sense of things. The seaborn breeze, coolly, kissing the sweat at his chest and neck. Gulls cawing, complaining, even as they feast on the thousands of floating dead. The steady breathing of the 300 at his back, ready to die for him without a moment's pause. Everyone of them ready, to die.

Immortals... they fail our king's test. And a man who fancies himself a god feels a very human chill crawl up his spine.