this be the typical italian sword and sandal epic represent low budget and melodramatic cardboard acting and repetitive and horrible dubbing and sub par action sequence and load of homo erotic imagery and one chisel foreign bodybuilder on the marquee . in this case and a beardless steve reeve a the marathon progenitor and phillipides . we start with the story of how phillipides become champion of the olympics and a the credit and title roll . this be immediately follow by a lengthy write paragraph and set up the back story of the love rectangle between phillipides and theocratis arrange wife ( andromeda ) and his concubine ( the mannish karis ) . the front story be your basic power struggle and mixed in with conspiracy and some battle with the persian . we can not forget the spartan . then toss . these epic seem like historical re enactment in term of the dialog and acting and costume and set and battle . history be the casualty in most and however and as be the enjoyment level and consciousness . the historical aspect would have be the only save grace . instead and crack the grappa and watch this with friend and savor the unintentional comic genius present in this movie . it be a rare and beautiful thing for the genre and though most of good one star steve reef . also see hercules and hercules unchain for reference . celluloid rehab .