It is the 75th Olympiad by Greek reckoning. The strongest, fastest, quickest and most agile men in Hellas gather at Olympia to celebrate life through athletic competition. Every four years, the Greeks declare their sacred truce and ban war and conflict from their borders for the duration of the games. That same year, 480 BCE by our reckoning, the Persian Empire rules the known world save for that small peninsula dominated by a dozen democratic city-states. To avenge the defeat of his father on the Plain of Marathon 10 years earlier, Xerxes, the self-proclaimed Great King amasses an army a million men strong to bring these free states to heel. With no regard to the sacred truce, Xerxes and his Immortals continue their steady march to smother democracy. Amid the cheering crowds, the sweat, dust and blood of the Elean fields of friendly strife, and threatened by the impending clash of armies with the fate of Western Civilization in the balance, two men, one a boxer, the other a poet come to the revelation that the true worth of a man is based on more than what he does for himself. The Olympian stands as tribute to those extraordinary warriors who waged a battle that saved Western culture.
advertisement