The Macedonian Army

If ever was there an army to be envied, it was the flawless war machine that was the brainchild of Philip II of Macedon and led by his son, Megas Alexandros. It was the greatest innovation of its day and was the model of armies for centuries to come. Also, the creative and clever tactics and strategies employed by Alexander and his numerous generals (The most illustrious by the names of Hephaestion, Perdiccas, Parmenion,

[more to come]

Alexander the Great

Along with his generals, the most ingenious tactician the world has ever seen. Plus, he was a complete crazy. [more to come]

King Philip II

Great strategist, strict dictator. [more to come]

Section III: The Macedonians

More to Come!!!

Glossaria Magna [pseudo-Latin]- Includes From Every Section

Here is the master glossary:

> Achaemenid Dynasty - Hakhāmanishiya in Old Persian. This line ruled Persia form its rise under Cyrus I until its fall under Darius III
> Ægean - a sea residing 'twixt Greece and modern Turkey
> Alcibiades - young Athenian leader during th aPeloponnesian War who defected tot he Spartan side
> Asia Minor - what is now Turkey
> aspis - the generic Greek word for "shield"
> Assembly - the ancient Athenian lawmaking council
> Assyrian Empire - An oppressive regime that was the largest of its time around the seventh century BC
> Athens - a still-surviving city in Greece that was founded in the Bronze Age
> Attica - the region around Athens and Thebes

> Babylon - an ancient city whose culture flourished in the late 3rd millenium BC
> Bactria - an ancient state that was where Afghanistan is now
> bell cuirass - eighth century BC bronze body armour
> Boeotia - small region northwest of Attica
> Boeotian shield - round shield with two strategically placed cutouts on the sides
> Bronze age - the late bronze age was between ca. 1600 and 1200 BC
> butt-spike - spike on the back end of a spear

> Corinth - a Greek city-state situated on the Peloponnesian Ithsmus
> Cleon - a ruler of Athens in the Peloponnesian War who died at the Battle of Amphipolis
> Cretan - of or pertaining to the island of Crete or its inhabitants
> Cyrus I - The first King of Persia

> Darius I - Emperor of Persia between 521 and 485 BC; arguably the greatest Persian king
> dathabam - 'tens'. Smallest division of a Persian army
> Dipylon shield - [see Boeotian shield]
> dory - probably the Greek word for "spear"

> Ethiopia - a region of Africa that was in contact with the European world in ancient times
> Euphrates - A river in the Mesopotamian region

> falcata - [see kopis]

> Gaugamela, Battle of - Alexander the Great's final victory over Emperor Darius III
> Græco-Persian War - The war that began around 500 BC with the Persian Emperor's invasion of the Greek mainland

> hazarabam - 'thousands'. Largest division of a Persian army
> Hellenic - of or pertaining to the Hellenes, or Greeks
> Hermes - Hellenic god of lots of stuff
> Hittites - an archaic people of Asia minor with an early knowledge of iron
> Homer - a Greek poet who may have lived in the 8th century BC
> hoplite - Hellenic part-time heavy infantry
> hoplon - an ancient Greek word meaning "tool"; later, "tool of war"

> Ionian Sea - the sea between Greece and Italy

> kern - Celtic skirmishers/light infantry
> kopis - Greek forward-curved sword

> Lagash - a city of the Sumerian civilization
> linen cuirass - somewhat flexible Greek armour made of stiff linen
> linothrax - [see linen cuirass]

> machaira - [see kopis]
> Marathon, Battle of - a decisive battle where the Athenians repelled the Persians
> Medes - The people of Media, who brought down the Assyrians, helped by the Babylonians
> Mesopotamia - the area that is now Iraq. Some of the first evidence of human agricultural civilization is here
> Minos - an ancient Greek culture centered on the island of Crete from 2500 - 1400 BC
> muscled cuirass - bronze (and later iron) Greek armor in the form of a muscled torso
> Mycenae - a powerful pre-Hellenic culture that dominated the Ægean between 1400 - 1000 BC

> Nicias - a ruler of Athens in the Peloponnesian War

> Ottoman Empire - a Turkish empire that was an important Muslim power in the Near East from its founding in 1299 to its fall in 1923

> Peloponnesian War- a war between the Athenians and their allies and the Spartans plus their allies. It began in 431 BC and ended in 404 BC with a decisive Spartan victory.
> Peloponnesus - the large peninsula in the south of Greece that is separated from the mainland by the Corinthian ithsmus
> pelta - crescent-shaped shield carried by Greek and Thracian light infantry
> peltast - Greek light infantry
> Pericles - ruler of Athens at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War
> pestilence - a plague, specifically the one that happened in 5th Century BC Athens
> Philippides - runner who told Athens of their victory at Marathon
> Phrygian cap - a cap, probably from the region of Phrygia
> phalanx - a dense rectangular block of soldiers armed with pikes and usually shields
> Piraeus - the port near Athens

> Salamis, Battle of - The naval battle between the Athenians and the Persians that resulted in the destruction of the entire Persian fleet
> sataba - 'hundreds'. The middle division of a Persian army
> satrapy - a Persian "fiefdom" of sorts, ruled by a satrap who owed allegiance to the Emperor of Persia
> Schliemann, Heinrich - Amateur archaeologist who uncovered the ancient sites of Troy, Mycenae, and Tiryns
> Scythians - A nomadic people who lived north and west of the Black Sea
> Sea peoples - raiders from the area of modern Israel who ravaged the coasts of Egypt in the time of the Old Kingdom
> Sicilian Expedition - ill-fated Athenian attempt to take Sicily from the Spartans
> spara - a large, leather shield
> sparabara - 'shieldbearer'. Persian mêlée infantry
> Sparta - a Greek city-state in the region of Lakonia on the Peloponnesus that was known for its legendary warriors
> Syracuse - large Greek settlement on the eastern coast of Sicily

> Thebes - Greek city-state in Boeotia
> Theban Sacred Band - fighting elite of Thebes, 100 men
> Thessaly - the great plain that dominates central Greece
> Thermopylae, Battle of - a Pyrrhic victory for the Persians against the Greeks
> Thrace - The region just to the west of the Black Sea, northeast of Macedonia
> Tigris - A river in the Mesopotamian region
> Troy - an ancient city in Asia Minor
> Tutankhamen - New Kingdom pharaoh whose tomb was discovered untouched by thieves

> Ur - a city of the Mesopotamian civilization

> veles - Roman skirmisher

> Xerxes I - Persian King who conquered most of Greece before finally being defeated
> xiphos - Greek shortsword

The Persian Army/The Egyptian Army

An excerpt from Soldiers & Ghosts by J.E. Lendon:

They bore shields stretched with the skins of cranes, when they marched against Greece, and they wore horses' foreheads as helmets, with the mane streaming down the back and the ears thrust up in the front. They marched with the Indians, with their garments of cotton and their bows of reed, but even with the Indians they made but a tiny part of the host that Xerxes, the Great King of Persia, had summoned forth from the recesses of his empire. For there were Persians with golden pomegranates on their spear-butts and Medes and Assyrians with helms of twisted bronze and Bactrians and Scythians and Parthians and Caspians, and the Ethiopians in the skins of leopards and lions: and the Ethiopians bore spears tipped with gazelles' horns, and before they fought painted their bodies half red and half white. And there were Arabians and Libyans with javelins burned hard at the point and Phrygians and Lydians and Mysians and Thracians with caps of fox skin. And to vie with the horse heads there were proud tiaras and humble snoods and helmets of leather and wood and bronze, with brazen ears and the horns of oxen wrought upon them.

The Persians have been known for rallying and fielding the largest armies of the ancient world. At battles such as Gaugamela and Thermopylae, perhaps a few hundred thousand. Some ancient historians exaggerate exponentially, Herodotus claiming over a million at Gaugamela and up to five million for the campaign to Thermopylae.

A Persian army would seem a gargantuan, disorganized ocean to the casual observer of ancient times (not that the observer's eyes would be casual in any sense; on the contrary, he would probably soil himself). But the loosely packed nebulae did hold a theoretical order. The organization seems to suggest the Persians used a base-ten numeric system, as the largest divisions were 'thousands', or hazarabam. The hazarabam were more or less akin to the modern 'regiment'. Each of the hazarabam were divided into sataba, or 'hundreds'. Dathabam come next. This 'ten' seems to be the only division that had any practical use, as the others were only hypothetical, really.

An excerpt from Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World by Simon Anglim, et al.:

Each dathabam would deploy in a file of 10, with the dathapatis (section commander) holding the spara up in front and nine archers lining up behind [in single file]. The dathapatis carried a 2m (6ft) long thrusting spear to defend the rest of his section; should he fall, then the archers defended themselves as best as they could with falchions -- short, curved swords with and edge but no point.

This 9:1 of ranged to hand-to-hand infantry (sparabara) indicates that if the incredible weight of Persian shot failed to decimate the enemy, then the odds were slanted against them when it literally came to blows. This explains the relative ease of how the few-but-heavily-armoured Greeks managed to rout Persian forces on several occasion without suffering massive casualties.
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The Egyptian Army

As we stated earlier,

The Persian Empire

Between 612 and 615 BC, the mighty Assyrian Empire, long past its day of glory, was dissolved by the forces of an unknown King of the Medes. But the Medians were not as strong and ruthless as the Assyrians were to become so powerful. Less than a century later, an ambitious prince, Cyrus (Kuruš) by name, cast the crown of the Medes to the ground and proceeded to take the land of the Tigris and Euphrates by force. He called his kingdom Pārsā ("above reproach", according to Wikipedia), or Persis to Hellenic ears. The kings that came after him carried on his great legacy a hundred fold, stretching the Persian Empire [below] from Egypt and Thrace all the way to India at the time of the reign of Darius I (Dārayawuš) the Great [above, right]. These Persians were certainly not as cruelly heavy-handed as the Assyrians were, but they had a healthy love of war and an intense enjoyment for enjoying its spoils. No Persian King could resist the feeling of a once-great nation groveling at his feet.

And so the Persians conquered. The first to fall to the Achaemenid Dynasty were the realms of the Middle East, then Egypt, near India, Arabia, Asia Minor, and Thrace. It seemed that no one could stop their rampage. Under Emperor Xerxes I (Khashâyârshâh), son of Darius I, everyone expected the tiny Greek states to fall like all the others. Indeed, they started to crumble until the Battle of Salamis, where the Persian armies lost any overseas contact with their homeland, and were forced to retreat back to Persia.

Section II: The Persians/Ancient Egyptians

Knowledge of how the Persians organized their armed forces is rather shadowy compared to our colourful view of the Greeks. This is because the ancient writers tended to romanticize the Greeks and to portray the Persian armies as immense, squabbling masses of a million soldiers, miraculously overcome by a small ragtag group of Greeks. Not that the Greeks weren't awesome. Often 'twas the case when a great Persian army, outnumbering the Greek hoplites at least 3:1, was defeated. Indeed, in the case of Thermopylae, the odds were as much as perhaps 300:1 in Persian favour on the third day. This is not to say that the Persians were evil; every conquering nation is seen in a different light. Simply being the aggressors in the Græco-Persian War leads people to believe the Persians were in the wrong. The Greeks certainly weren't, but assessing accountability in war is a shady business. Although, I suppose that in those rather undiplomatic times, if you invaded a country and won, you were seen as the heroic victors removing a malicious power. If your forces were defeated by the locals defending their homeland, you were seen as a heartless invader overcome by simple men with tremendous loyalty. But the point is moot. In the Græco-Persian War, it is generally accepted that, while being a grand and sophisticated nation, the Persians were the bad guys.

Note: The archer pictured above to the left is actually not Persian. He is Scythian. However, the similarites are enough for him to look the part.
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We neglected to address the ancient Egyptians earlier in the blog, and we decided that we'd just stick them in here because it is slightly more appropriate than after the Macedonian section. Granted, it is anachronistic by a fairly large margin, but you can't add posts below those you've already published. Anyway, there are almost no extensive excavations of Egyptian weapons. The artifacts are limited to various weapons lifted from tombs such as that of Tutankhamen. However, numerous steles and other carvings depict fairly uniform soldiers with surprising consistency.

The Greek Navy

In spite of the relative inefficiency of classical naval warfare, it played a very important part in Mediterranean military history. The Battle of Salamis [above] is considered one of the most decisive battles the world has ever seen (we will discuss Salamis later).

The 'standard' Greek ship such as those depicted above was the trireme. The trireme had two available methods of propulsion (unless Poseidon felt inclined to provide some form of divine transport), the sail or three banks of oars. The term bank refers to 'levels' of oarsmen. Throughout history most nations, including most of Persia, have placed slaves or men of the lower class at the oars, deeming such work dishonourable. Greece, however, selected many of their best to serve below decks. According to the Greeks this was an incredibly honourable task. This probably was part of the reason Hellenic navies were the best in the world at the time:

Good Men + Lots of Training + Excellently Built Ships = The Finest Navy In the World

An Early Greek Vessel

One of the keys to Greek and Mediterranean ship design lies in an oddly shaped bow (front of the ship). The lower part, as shown above juts out under the waterline several metres. This devise was then coated in metal, usually bronze, and, when propelled by the 170 oarsmen of a trireme, could be used to ram the opponents ship. At this point the ten or so Greek Marine Hoplites on board would rush forward under the cover of about four archers to attempt to board the enemy ship.

The Greek Army

In all the years that man has fought against one another, there have been few if any armies with greater discipline than that of a Greek army. The standard heavy infantry of a contingent of Greeks and the very backbone of the army was the hoplite [right].

In Erich Maria Remarque's Im Westen nichts Neues, a character by the name of Albert Kropp wonders why the opposing leaders don't just duke it out themselves rather than spend the lives of hundreds of thousands of the wrong people. It is similar nowadays, where the poor turn to the army because it is the only thing that they can do, and fight the war for the rich people who have things to lose. Back in the day (classical times), war was a much more serious affair for the rich. First of all, usually only the rich could go to was because only they had the money for equipment. Instead of the aristocrats thrusting less fortunate citizens in as a shield, the rich and upper middle class set out to fight for their land and people. This didn't change in the Mediterranean until 107 BC, when Consul Gaius Marius pushed for a great number of reforms in the Roman army, which included that weapons and equipment be provided by the state, thus allowing the poor to enlist by the thousands. We'll tell you more about it in the Roman section.


The Hoplite

In spite of the rich being the endangered, war flourished in the Ægean between 750 and 200 BC. The chosen type of soldier for the ancient Greeks was a heavily armed mêlée infantryman. When a company of Hellenes came marching, the most immediately noticeable things were the round, colorfully adorned shields with a large diameter of one metre. The earlier Mycenaean shields had taken many shapes, but almost all of the classical H e l l e n i c shields used by these shock troops were circular concave items with a pair of strips on the back that were meant for the hand and forearm. This wooden or bronze (usually both) shield was known as the aspis or hoplon. The name for the infantry, hoplite (hoplitēs, οπλίτης), can be taken to be derived from hoplon, which originally meant 'tool,' later 'tool of war.' Aspis is the general word for shield.

Spear
There is little to be said for the spear. It was not very long at about 2-2.5 metres, and was used exclusively for thrusting. Until the phenomenon of the Boetian (Dipylon) shield, the spear was wielded overhand, as if one were to throw it. The head itself was iron and plainly leaf shaped, not barbed or with a crossguard. The haft was ash, and the butt-spike was bronze rather than iron; it was also an actual spike, unlike the earlier apple-shaped Persian ones.

Sword
The sword comes next. Many books seem to resist using the word xiphos (indeed, the only term in Greek for the word 'spear' that we have found is 'dory'), but it is the best that we have, so we'll use it. Most Greek swords were straight, double-edged affairs, stretching between sixty and seventy centimetres in length. Often the edges themselves were curved in such a way that the blade of the xiphos resembled an oblong leaf, hence the term 'leaf-bladed'. The specific model on the left is known as the 'lakonian' ('spartan'). It is an earlier iron type, later being replaced with the longer type [right]. Thie xiphos was not the only type of sword used by the Greeks. Two similar sword types were developed on the side: the machaira and the kopis [below], the later better known for the Iberian peoples' use of it against the Romans (there known as the falcata). The whole idea of the kopis is, in my humble opinion, the long blade and easy wielding of the sword blended with the momentum- fetching, bone- crushing, pig- headedness of the axe. This sword was favored more in the later centuries of hellenic warfare, particularly in the case of the Macedonians under Philip II and Alexander III. Perhaps the design was given to the Iberians by Greek colonists, for the pattern is exactly the same, apart from the Greek style being slightly longer and more slender. As for the machaira, it is exactly the same but without a pommel and no guard for the lower hand.

Armour and Helmet
The armor varies greatly depending on the specific era. In the early time of the heavy hoplite around 700 BC (not long after the 'champion' type of combat had been abolished), a simple bronze cuirass [left] was the norm. This 'bell cuirass', as it was called, was rather heavy, and, according to Victor David Hanson, hoplites preferred to wait until seconds before engagement to actually don the armour. The bell cuirass enjoyed extreme popularity until the sixth century BC, when it became increasingly ornate and was very expensive to produce. This newer version is perhaps the best known type of Greek armour for its later use by officers and patricians in the Roman Empire. It is simply called the 'muscled cuirass' [right]. The earlier bronze ones were obviously more decorated than the iron ones, as bronze is a much easier metal to work with. Nevertheless, the muscled cuirass pattern was used throughout antiquity, if only in small numbers. The muscled cuirass pictured on the right is a reconstruction of the full-length version. Some were slightly shorter to allow greater movement of the waist. These short cuirasses were the ones later used by Roman officials. Another way the muscled cuirass was modified for more comfort was to simply enlarge the arm openings and to spread the bottom half out on all sides, like a more exaggerated bell cuirass. This wide type was used exclusively by horsemen so that they could fit on a horse. The last cuirass is called the 'linothrax', or linen cuirass. The linen cuirass was constructed of a pair of thick, stiff linen shapes in the pattern on the left with the shoulder straps attached on the back. The linothrax was usually decorated with Greek 'keys', or geometric patterns in on or two colors. Some featured the common Greek stylized gorgon head. It may seem too light and just downright weak, but the linen cuirass enjoyed a huge amount of popularity according to classical vases and such. Therefore, it must have been effective in some way. Peter Connolly claims to have made his own, but it is also available from websites such as Manning Imperial for a rather large amount of Australian dollars.

Now for the helmets. In the picture on the right, the far left helmet is a very early Corinthian helmet. Corinthan helms are identified easily by covering most of the face and having a nose guards. Next is a heavily decorated Corinthian, and then the less common Illyrian helm, which has a squarish face and the noticably absent nose guard. These are obviously named for the Illyrians, a 'barbaric' people that resided in the Albania/Former Yugoslavia region. The last helmet is a late Corinthan helm. The ear holes are a sure giveaway that a helmet is from the later period of Greek warfare. Bronze was the chosen metal to mould into intricate items like these helmets. Copper had been obsolete for many centuries, and iron was too hard. The happy medium was bronze, which was very easy to bend into elegant greaves and formidable helms. The crests were of horse hair (presumably taken from the tail) and dyed red, white, or simply left black. Generally, the crests faced forward and back like the one pictures, but kings and officers preferred to wear the transverse crest [right] as a symbol of rank.







The Peltast

The peltast was a type of light, skirmisher infantry, equivalent to the Roman velite and the Irish kern. They were primarily used to harass the enemy and engage their equals on the opposing side. Their name, 'peltast', refers to the crescent-shaped shield that they often carried: the pelta. We have much less to say about them than the hoplite, as they were much less important. They were also known for their wearing of the 'Phrygian cap'.

Javelins
...were relatively standard with slight fluxuations according to the personal preferance of the wielder. That's all we know.

Shield
As was previously mentioned, peltasts bore the pelta, which resembled a cookie with a large bite out of it. It was constructed of wicker and then covered in leather or, rarely, bronze.




Cavalry

Greek Cavalry played a relatively insignificant role in battle. Primarily they were used as scouts and messengers. Almost all were very lightly armoured and armed with a sword or spear. This later became part of the cause of the fall of Greece and the rise of Macedon. Because of their armament, the cavalry was ineffictive as shock troops though were sometimes used in flanking an enemy. Below is a relatively standard formation of a Greek army with light infantry [in this case they were of a social lower class and carried only spear, sword, axe or anything that was on hand as they marched to war] and cavalry on the wings that will flank the enemy as they are held in place by the hoplites and harassed by the peltasts.

The Greek City-States

City States:

Ancient Greek society was based largly around the city state, or polis. The city, such as Athens, Sparta, and Pylos would hold dominance over the land surrounding it. Subsequently, they farmed, mined, and levied taxes from those inhabiting the province. Though each city was independant, each would form loose confederations with nearby cities or else gain dominance by force. Even after a city fell, it was largely left free. Normally it was only a single leader who paid the price of defeat. There have been numerous recordings of a son of the overthrown established on the throne by the victor to rule under certian ordinances increasing trade and fealty to the victor. {Not Finished}




Classical Greece:

By the eighth century BC, Greek warfare had barely changed at all from that of the earlier Mycenaean era. Almost all soldiers at this time were heavy infantry armed with spear, shield and sword. Hoplites were not full-time soldiers. Citizens took the mantle of the hoplite only when the city-state went to war. Only the wealthy could afford to join a hoplite detachment. Much of the lower class would fight as light infantry or peltasts.

Earlier hoplites engaged other infantry in a simple shield wall formation with their hoplons presented forth and their spears held overhand. Later in the life of the Greek military, perhaps around the sixth century BC, a new formation was introduced: the phalanx ("roller"). Strictly speaking, the phalanx was not a new idea. It was in fact borrowed form the armies of the Mesopotamian area from around 2000 years earlier. Carvings form this time indicate that early agricultural realms such as Babylon, Lagash and Ur used soldiers similar to hoplites and deployed them in tightly-packed rectangular formations with soldiers in the further ranks form the front sticking their pikes out from behind the shields of the front rank and the ranks before them doing likewise. Sometimes shields were not used, but rather the spears wielded with both hands. This was very rare after Mesopotamian times until the 1400s, where it was widely used until the 1700s.

Marathon: 490 B.C.

One of the greatest victories in history occurred when a Greek force of 10,400 stopped a Persian invasion of 20,000 men and horse. King Darius I of Persia and Athens had for many years been at a standstill caused by the Persian's conquest of Greek Ionia (what is now western Turkey). In 499 B.C. the Ionians revolted as they were joined by a force of 25 triremes from Athens. Soon thereafter, Darius I crushed this revolt (494 B.C.) and decided to attack the Greeks at the first opportunity. Darius then appointed Datis, Mede and his nephew Artaphrenes to gather an army (600 triremes worth) which they soon achieved and quickly crushed once again any Greek resistance in Ionia (Eretria). After this victory they turned the fleet to the west towards Athens. The Athenians marched on Marathon (a nearby village) where the Persians had landed their gargantuan army. The Greek commanders voted on whether to attack or retreat until Spartan forces arrived. A commander by the name of Callimachus was forced to make the final decision. He decided for open conflict, not a cowardly flight.

There is a Spartan saying that goes thus: 'Come home with this shield or upon it.' as a Spartan is handed his shield by his mother. This aphorism shows the importance of bravery. When fleeing a battle, the first thing a warrior would do would be to cast aside his shield which could weigh several kilograms. If that warrior was killed in battle his body was returned to his mother on his shield. This shows just how militaristic and firm the Spartan society was. Because of this they were the best warriors in the world for several hundred years, a feat that no other force has ever rightfully claimed. The only individuals with a chance of defeating a Spartan were members of the Theban Sacred Band or an Athenian Myrmidon. As has been discussed in previous posts, honour was a virtue that every Greek abided by and for one polis (city state) to retreat from battle would cause an undue amount of shame for years—nay, centuries to come.

When the battle commenced, the Athenians charged their Persian adversaries. The Athenian phalanx was strongest on the flanks, thus as the two sides clashed, the Athenian centre began to collapse. At this time Athenian peltasts began to rain barrages of missile fire into the Persians, now held in place by the Athenian heavy infantry. Soon the Persian flanks began to collapse due to the additional Athenian troop strength but the Athenian centre began to weaken. The Persian spearmen managed to puncture the middle of the Athenian line, but by this time it was too late. The archers on the Persian flanks fought with their falchions but were literally rolled over by the heavily armed Greeks. The Athenians managed to bring their wings around to meet at the back of the mass of Persians, at which point the invaders saw their folly and broke. Thousands were slaughtered there as they tried to run past the fury of the Hellenes and back to their beached ships, some of which were already burning. Somewhere near 6400 Persians fell on that field outside of Athens, while the defenders boasted a miraculously small 192 casualties. The Asians also lost a few ships to the Athenians in their panic.

Elated with their victory, the Athenian generals summoned their swiftest runner and instructed him to bring news of the victory to Athens. This runner's name was Philippides. Philippides obliged, and traversed the distance between Marathon and Athens, some 35-40 kilometres at a continuous top-speed sprint, in the same day of the battle. He reached the gates of Athens, where he uttered a simple word to the citizens and then collapsed, dead of sheer exhaustion. The word that he whispered proclaimed the Athenian victory, but his exact saying is unsure. Perhaps he simply stated 'nike!', the Greek noun simply meaning 'victory'. Other sources claim that he said 'nenikékamen!', or 'we are victorious'. Either way, it is one of the most dramatic points in history.


The Peloponnesian War

The Peloponnesian War began when the civilization of the Greek peoples was at its zenith. The Athenians were diplomatically, socially and territorially superior enough to be called an empire. Their holdings were spread around the Aegean Sea, from Attica and Thessaly on the Greek mainland to the numerous cities scattered across the west coast of Asia Minor, and all of the hundreds of islands in between. Their allies stood close and firm, and a new, strong leader was at their head: Pericles. The people of Athens had great confidence in him (obviously, since the elected him), and followed his orders without question. He held in his hand the unquestionable might of Athenian money and naval prowess.

The Spartans, by stark contrast, were conservative and military to the extreme; one might even call their system fascist. They were ruled as they had always been ruled: by one king descended from the king before him. Fighting was their life. From the day they could lift a sword to the day they were struck down by one, the Spartans trained to fight. They spent every waking hour preparing themselves for their next armed (or unarmed) struggle. Their army was the greatest the world had ever seen. Their solemnly steadfast allies included Corinth, Megara, and all others in the Peloponnesian Peninsula but Argos.

In the year 433 before the birth of Christ, Athens had her eyes set on higher prizes than those she had already obtained. Pericles may have well known the risk he was taking in consorting with a colony of Corinth, but he had faith in the power he had around him. He took the brazen step of forming an alliance between his own city-state and the Corinthian island colony of Corcyra in the Ionian Sea. Corinth was deeply offended because of their deep-rooted bias against the Athenians, and demanded that the alliance be dissolved. Pericles, angered by this gross disregard of Athenian authority, declared a complete trade embargo with the city of Corinth. Being the head of the Peloponnesian network of alliances, everyone looked to the Spartans to act. With the fell smack of the proverbial gavel, Sparta declared war on Athens in 431 BC.

The Athenian strategy was based around the simple idea that if they all left their fields and sat behind their stone walls, the Spartans would come, burn some countryside, throw a few stones, and eventually run out of resources and sue for peace. The Spartans thought to do nothing more than that, but with the besieging of several cities along the way. Thus began the great chain of devastating disasters that would lead the Athenian people to fall from their golden pedestal forever. All of the countrymen and farmers that lived on Athenian property called themselves Athenians and were allowed to vote as Athenians. All of these villagers and peasants were packed behind the strong walls of the city of Athens itself. With so very many people in such tight proximity to each other, any small event could affect a great many humans. It was never known where it came from, but a plague began in the densely populated urban center, possibly a strain of typhus. Bodies of the dead and dying could be found on every street of the sick city. No one was safe, and no one cared now about the Spartans.

In the political center of Athens, the politicians and aristocrats blamed Pericles for this “pestilence”, as they called it. Realizing that decisive action must be taken, Pericles proceeded to take his navy form the port of Piraeus and attempted to capture the Spartan-loyal city of Epidaurus. In this he failed, but his navy ravished the eastern coastline of the Peloponnesus all the same. Hoping to be greeted with more respect upon his arrival to Athens, he was greatly disappointed and surprised. The Spartan army had been rampaging around Attica for forty days, pillaging and killing, all the while keeping Athens herself under siege. On his return, he was kicked out of office. Seeing their mistake soon after, he was reelected and he continued his rule. But he only ruled for one more year, for the plague continued, and it ensnared Pericles in the end. He died within only within a few years of the War’s opening.

After Pericles’ death, there were two men vying for power in the Athenian government. There was Nicias, a devout advocate of peace with Sparta, and Cleon, a hardened warrior, not unlike a Spartan himself. Nicias and Cleon more or less jointly shared the office of Ruler of Athens, but that was the only unifying quality that they had. Otherwise, their policies were very different, and kept the people split sharply into two factions of support.

The first great test as to who the Assembly (the Athenian legislative body made up of ordinary citizens) would back was in 428 BC, when the city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos revolted against Athenian rule. Cleon proposed to send a ship full of soldiers over to Mytilene and massacre the entire population of men. Full of anger at the rebels, the Assembly agreed. Not so long after, however, they changed their minds and sent another ship that, with days of hard rowing, caught up with the first ship and told them to turn around.

Cleon was also very full of himself. At the Assembly, he boasted that he could sail around to the west side of the Peloponnesian Peninsula and take the city of Sphacteria, near the Spartan port Pylos. Nicias, in an attempt to deflate the headstrong Cleon, charged him to take the navy and do so. At everyone’s surprise, he succeeded. How much it did for the Athenians is unclear.
Lots of the Athenian people thought that it would be prudent to end the war here, when they were at an advantage. Cleon insisted on fighting though, and everything began to go downhill for the Athenians even faster than before. In 422 BC, at the Battle of Amphipolis in Thrace (northeast of Greece), Cleon himself fell in battle. A tentative peace treaty was signed in 421 BC, but all the Greeks knew that it meant nothing. In the absence of Cleon, Athens wanted a strong new leader unlike the timid Nicias. Young Alcibiades answered their call. He was a relative of Pericles, and the people accepted him with vigor. Alcibiades disregarded the Peace Treaty of 421 BC and began the assault on Sparta. He had a good plan, but there were certain problems that ended in complete tragedy for Athens.

The Spartan Alliance was supplied by the Corinthians, who ruled the city of Syracuse on Sicily. Syracuse was so rich in resources that if the Corinthians lost contact with it, their supplies would be depleted and they would have to surrender. A massive force of Athenians gathered at the port of Piraeus and sailed off to Syracuse with Nicias, Alcibiades and a general named Lamachus. The “Sicilian Expedition”, as it came to be called in later years, was perhaps the worst yet most predictable mistake that the Athenians could have made. Alcibiades could have saved the expedition, but upon arrival at Sicily, news reached him that he was to stand trial in Athens for blasphemy of images of Hermes. He more or less freaked out and switched to the Spartan side.

The attack began well, until Lamachus was killed. Now only Nicias was left. He requested reinforcements, who came just in time to replace the majority of the dead Athenians. Most of the new men died, however, and the rest wanted to return to Athens. Nicias, a very superstitious man, refused to leave when the moon was in eclipse, and the Sicilians caught up with them, killing some and enslaving many more. Only a few escaped.

Almost nothing remarkable occurred in in the last ten years of the war. Many of the Athenian allies deserted her in these years. Finally, what was left of the Athenian fleet was destroyed in the harbor of Aegospotami, near where Istanbul is now. The Athenians sued for peace and tore down their own walls and gave their navy to Sparta. Thus ended what was, in my opinion, the true first enlightenment.

The Mycenaeans

Mycenae was a Greek city-state that was the dominant power in the Ægean from ca. 1400 to 1100 BC. This bronze-age civilization found its power in its military, as did many states in archaic times. The concept of the heavy infantryman was not yet relevant, as mobility was a major factor in warfare.

The Mycenaean state grew at a steady pace. The other city-states of the Peloponnesian Peninsula and mainland Greece were subdued in a fairly short time. Even the mighty Cretan civilization of Minos fell to her knees before the armies of Mycenae.

Unfortunately, the sources of information concerning the Mycenaean military are rather scarce. There was the major discovery of the actual citadel of Mycenae in 1841 and the more complete excavation in 1874 by Heinrich Schliemann, plus a few minor archaeological sites. Other than that, much of our knowledge of Mycenaean society derives from Homer. In the Iliad, he refers to the Greeks as Achaeans, Argives, and Danaans alternately. These may have been names of small Greek kingdoms, or they could have been different names for the Hellenes. Anyway, the Mycenaeans were best known for leading the armies for the armies of the Hellenic kingdoms against the city-state of Troy (known as Ilion or Troia to the Greeks, Illium to the Romans, and possibly Wilusa to the Hittites) in Asia Minor.

The Mycenaean soldier of the Trojan war would have been armed with a bronze-headed spear perhaps 2.5 metres in length, which probably would have been used for thrusting, but it could be thrown if the warrior so desired. His shield would be ox- or cowhide stretched over wicker, perhaps. Only nobility and charioteers (horseback riding was only used in the far east at this point) would wear armor of any kind, but most warriors would wear bronze swords as long as a metre, which was very irregular for weapons of this and the following period, suggesting that the Mycenaean blacksmith was particularly proficient in his art. The helm of this bronze-age warrior would have been constructed by its wearer, consisting of boar-tusk plates sewn on to a leather cap. A horsetail crest would have embellished the top.

The order of battle would probably have been a large press of disorganized masses. The Mycenaean warrior would find it honorable to die amongst the corpses of his foes. Honor was also sought in single combat. Some historians doubt this theory, as it may have been an element borrowed from Homer's own time.

An excerpt from Fighting Techniques of the Ancient World by Simon Anglim, et al.:

There is no evidence to refute the Homeric notion of single combat between champions - the story of David and Goliath indicates that this was practised among the Sea Peoples, who were contemporary and culturally similar to the Mycenaeans. However, many historians argue this was more part of Homer's own time, the so-called Greek 'Dark Age'. Battles of this period were undisciplined mêlées in which the warrior ethic reigned supreme, with aristocrats and champions duelling for prestige.

Apparently, the Mycenaean civilization began to crumble as soon as barbaric tribes of northwestern Greeks* (today called the Dorians) invaded in huge hordes and set up their own civilization which lasted more or less until the Romans invaded, and even then, it remained greatly undisturbed until the establishment of the Crusader kingdoms and, later, the final invasion of the Ottoman Turks in the latter half of the fifteenth century.


*One of the Dorian tribes called itself the Ghrekos. The Italic peoples (later the Romans) knew of this tribe and mistakenly referred to all of Hellas as "Grecia".

Also, because of the Greek colonies on the Italian coast, the Italic tribes referred to eastern Italy as "Magna Grecia", or "Greater Greece", when it was, in fact, only a small colonization. Despite its innacuracy, this title stuck throughout Classical Times.

Section I: The Greeks

The nations of those of the Western and Northern Ægean in the time period of approximately 800 to 360 B.C. are most commonly known as the Greeks, or the Hellenes in their own tongue. To the east resided their most hated and feared enemy: the Persians. The heart of the Persian Empire lay in what is now Iran. The Greek peoples were just as familiar with warfare as the Persians, but for the Greeks, war was basically an inter-tribal affair. Armies were often no more than a thousand heavy infantry in a close combat. The weak weapons and heavy armor limited the casualties of a normal battle to only a score or two. Meanwhile, the dense populations of the Persian satrapies allowed the middle-eastern peoples to engage in massive battles, fielding sometimes more than 100,000 infantry and hundreds more on horse and chariot. Despite the overwhelming numbers of the Persian forces, the Greek heavy infantry known as hoplites and their lighter counterparts, the peltastai (peltasts) were infinitely superior to almost anything the Persian kings could send to do battle. The only thing stopping the Greeks from invading Persia was their mutual distrust of the other city-states. Only after a foreign power came into Greece did they dare to attack their mortal enemies.