Jason says:
what am I supposed to do?
Jon says:
clean your apt before she moves in? buy some pink bed sheets? scented candles?
Jason says:
wait, u have pink bed sheets?
Jon says:
ive said too much
As the Soviets used to say, quantity has a quality of its own!
Cap is more than a match for any one of them.
He is more than a match for any 5 of them.
He is even more than a match for 20 of them (arguably).
However that must be near the max (unless he has tactical battlefield advantage). While he is the superior fighter (by far), the Spartans are also not that bad. They are good enough to the point where their numbers would simply overwhelm him ....and quickly.
Look at it as attrition ....sooner or later one spear would get through, then another, then another, and Cap would be systematically broken down until one of the Spartans performs a death strike.
It is similar to what happened in WW2 between the German Panzer divisions and the Russian tanks.
The German Tiger was the 'best' tank of the war, and it could kill any other tank operating at the time.
However the Russian T-34 was the best tank of the war (without commas i.e 'best') because the Russians could mass produce the darn thing. Now, the T-34 was crude, it was ugly, and it wasn't the most comfortable thing around. However it worked, and there were many of them. Many.
The German tank divisions were simply overwhelmed. It doesn't matter if you can kill 7 tanks if 8 are coming after you.
Cap goes down. And he goes down quick (for another comparison look at nature films that shows what happens when a lion faces off against a hyena. One on one it is not a match. One on two it is still too easy for the lion to win. One on three it is still to the lion's favor. However beyond that ratio things start to RAPIDLY go to the hyena's favor. All it takes is one nip by the hyena - whcih has the strongest jaws of any land animal - and the lion's fighting ability is severely degraded. Then another bite or two and the lion's ability to fight is negated. Then a quick and brutal death ensues).
I wouldnt say its spite. I think you're underestimating Capt here. as said before, he's taken down armies of guys armed with guns which would wipe out the 300. Not to mention, Capt can throw his shield and wipe out a whole bunch of them pretty quickly before they even get to him to engage in melee/h2h combat. I'd say if Capt was lucky, he could take down maybe 100 Spartans.
Any character who can suffer from attritive damage, no matter how good he/she may be (e.g. Captain America, Batman, Batgirl, Shiva etc) will always go down when facing vast numbers. And 300 trained combatants IS a large number.
Sooner or later something will get through, and every cut/stab/slash will degrade the character's performance.
Now, if the soldiers were to come one after the other then the character could have a chance of winning (since one on one, or even one on ten, those characters are far superior than the Spartans).
However an en masse attack will mean combat attrition will take place (or even a lucky hit that kills the character outright).
Anyways, someone like Cap or Batman versus 300 Spartans in a melee battle without any sort of advantage is going to lose. Always. The way such a fight is structured is totally to the Spartans favor.
Someone like Wolverine on the other hand is different. He would not suffer attritive damage due to his healing factor, and thus would have a chance that Cap/Shiva/etc wouldn't have.
Then you have true supers ....eg the guy in your sig (Mr. Majestic). He could kill 3 billion Spartans in less than a minute, and as easily as he could kill 300 of them.