Question on "300" quote

[Patriot-Brewer]

Towards the end when Leonidas said something along the lines of "May you live forever" to the traitor, what's the significance to that?

1. He'll meet him in hell and get revenge then
2. Some meaning with Greek religion
3. broken Spartan honor code
4. ?

Just curious, that quote is the one that got me thinking.

 

[Twitch]

RE: "300" quote

I don't know for sure, but I think Leonidas referred to the traitor living forever with the guilt of betraying Sparta. I felt kind of bad for the hunchback. He only wanted to serve.

 

[Flyboy]

I took it as "may your name live forever in infamy." And, arguably, it has: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephialtes_of_Trachis

Ephialtes has been considered the archetypical traitor to the Greek cause - although other Greeks also helped Xerxes, from fear or hope of reward. His name has become an epithet for traitors; more commonly in Modern Greek than in English, used in the same manner as the American-English terms "Quisling" and "Benedict Arnold". His name both in Ancient and in Modern Greek literally means "nightmare."

 

[Cromlech]

Yeah, what Flyboy said.

 

[Cybrludite]

Living forever does kinda rule out that whole glorious death in battle thing the Spartans had going.

 

[repsychler]

I took it the same way as Twitch. I saw it as him saying, "May you live (with what you did) forever."

 

[answerguy]

I took it as having nothing to do with guns.

 

[El Tejon]

May you live forever (in order to remember your treason).

 

[Brian Dale]

After Leonidas had denied him the chance to fight as one of them, Ephialtes cursed the day that his parents had fled Sparta in order to save his life. He later asked Xerxes for a uniform, which seemed to me to be the most important to him of the three requests--I speculate that he sought to belong to an army, if not to the army he'd dreamed of. He apparently still sought the Spartan ideal: to die well, in battle, even if it be battle against the people to whom he'd been born.

"May you live forever" is usually a blessing. In that context it becomes a curse, payment for treason.

 

[Owen]

I took it as "May (the infamy of your treachery) live forever"

 

[Brian Dale]

2d thought: owen, I think you're right.

 

[Mr White]

I think Cybrludite hit the nail on the head.
The Spartans were all about glory, heroics and living/dying by the warrior's code. Dying in battle was a huge honor for them and denying a Spartan that honor would have been a huge slap in the face.

 

[kd7nqb]

I am in the camp of believing that it was about his betrayal of Sparta, was anybody upset that they dont actually use the term Molone Labe?

 

[Mal H]

The original question has been answered more or less satisfactorily, and since it wasn't firearms related in the first place, we'll close this one.