Armies Of Ancient Greece Circa 500 338 Bc

Illustrated with color photos, this guide details the arms, armor, organization, and tactics of Classical Greek armies. The Classical period includes some of the most famous wars and battles of Ancient Greece, including the defeat of the Persians at Marathon, the Spartans’ last stand at Thermopylae, the Peloponnesian War and the March of the Ten Thousand. The Greek heavy infantry spearmen, or hoplites, are one of the most recognizable types of ancient warrior and their tightly-packed phalanx formation dominated the battlefield. Covering the period from the Persian Wars to the Macedonian victory at the Battle of Chaeronea, Gabriele Esposito examines the famous hoplites heavy infantry as well as other troops, such as light infantry skirmishers and cavalry. His clear, informative text is beautifully illustrated with dozens of color photographs showing how the equipment was worn and used.

In this comprehensive overview of ancient warfare, Antonio Santosuosso explores how the tactical and strategic concepts of warfare changed between the beginning of the fifth century B.C. and the middle of the second century B.C. and why the West-Greece, Macedonia, and Rome-triumphed over the East-understood geographically as Persia or ideologically

Warfare in Ancient Greece assembles a wide range of source material and introduces the latest scholarship on the Greek experience of war. The author has carefully selected key texts, many of them not previously available in English, and provided them with comprehensive commentaries. For the Greek polis, warfare was a more usual state of affairs than peace. The documents assembled here recreate the social and historical framework in which ancient Greek warfare took place - over a period of more than a thousand years from the Homeric Age to Alexander the Great. Special attention is paid to the attitudes and feelings of the Greeks towards defeated people and captured cities. Complete with notes, index and bibliography, Warfare in Ancient Greece will provide students of Ancient and Military History with an unprecedented survey of relevant materials

The origin of the Western military tradition in Greece 750-362 BC is fraught with controversies, such as the date and nature of the phalanx, the role of agricultural destruction and the existence of rules and ritualistic practices. This volume collects papers significant for specific points in debates or theoretical value in shaping and critiquing controversial viewpoints. An introduction offers a critical analysis of recent trends in ancient military history and provides a bibliographical essay contextualizing the papers within the framework of debates with a guide to further reading.

“A detailed, insightful survey of Greek warfare” with illustrations and “many well-informed and highly perceptive observations” (Choice). In this book, historian and archaeologist Simon Elliott considers the different fighting styles of Greek armies and discusses how Greek battles unfolded. Covering every aspect of warfare in the Ancient Greek world from the beginnings of Greek civilization to its assimilation into the ever-expanding world of Rome, it begins with the onset of Minoan culture on Crete around 2000 BC, then covers the arrival of the Mycenaean civilization and the ensuing Late Bronze Age Collapse before moving on to Dark Age and Archaic Greece. This sets the scene for the flowering of Classical Greek civilization, as told through detailed narratives of the Greek and Persian Wars, the Peloponnesian Wars, and the rise of Thebes as a major power. The book then moves on to Macedonian domination under Philip II, before focusing on the exploits of his son Alexander the Great, the all-conquering hero of the ancient world. His legacy was the Hellenistic world with its multiple, never-ending series of conflicts that took place over a huge territory, ranging from Italy in the west all the way to India in the east. Topics covered include the various Wars of the Successors, the rise of the Bactrian-Greek and Indo-Greek kingdoms, the wars between the Antigonid Macedonian, Seleucid, and Ptolemaic kingdoms, and later the clash of cultures between the rising power of Rome in the west and the Hellenistic kingdoms. In the long run the latter proved unable to match Rome’s insatiable desire for conquest in the eastern Mediterranean, and this together with the rise of Parthia in the east ensured that one by one the Hellenistic kingdoms and states fell. The book ends with the destruction of Corinth in 146 BC after the defeat by Rome of the Achaean League—and concludes by considering the legacy of the Ancient Greeks in the Roman world, and subsequently. “A comprehensive survey, smoothly written by an expert popularizer of ancient history. A tour de force.” —NYMAS Review

This book covers the period from 500 BC to 350 BC and describes the wars between the Persian empire and the Greek city states. It is organised into three separate sections. The first describes Greek and Persian troop types, and the typical army compositions, and then deals with the Great Persian Wars in some detail. The second describes the Peloponnesian War within Greece. The third section details the developments in the Persian Army following the time of Xerxes, and the various campaigns of the 4th Century B.C. as the Greeks took the offensive against Persia. In all three sections typical campaigns have been described in some detail. This book was published in 1975 and has been out of print for many years. It is reprinted here with an updated bibliography.

Examines the military organization, armour and weapons of ancient Greek civilization during the bronze age, the age of the city-states and the age of Alexander.

The period from 1200 BC onwards saw vast changes in every aspect of life on both the Greek mainland and islands as monarchies disappeared and were replaced by aristocratic rule and a new form of community developed: the city-state. Alongside these changes a new style of warfare developed which was to be the determining factor in land warfare in Greece until the defeat of the Greek city-state by the might of Macedonia at Chaeronea in 338 BC. This mode of warfare was based on a group of heavily armed infantrymen organized in a phalanx formation – the classic hoplite formation – and remained the system throughout the classical Greek period. This new title details this pivotal period that saw the transition from the Bronze Age warriors of Homer to the origins of the men who fought the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars.