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Ancient Wars
The Ancient period is generally accepted as being 600 BCE to 500 CE, before which was the Archaic period, and after which began the Medieval period. However as there is not an Archaic Wars category, it is acceptable to post pre-500 BCE military questions in this area.
1,657 Questions
Why was the battle of Marathon so important in the history of Athens and all of the Pelopponnesus?
Marathon didn't affect the Peloponnese. It was the culmination of a punitive expedition sent by Persia specifically agains Athens and Eretria for involving themselves in the Persian Empire by burning the provincial capital of Asia Minor.
What Marathon did provoke was a Persian realisation that the mainland Greeks would always be tempted to help their kith and kin in the Greek cities in Asia Minor and so be a disruptive force to the Persian Empire's stability.
Persia therefore determined to bring mainland Greece into subjection as part of the Empire, and so establish an ehtnic frontier. The result was the full scale invasion ten years later (480 BCE) which did indeed affect the Peloponnese and all the other cities in mainland Greece.
After defeat of this invasion Athens established an anti-Persian defensive league which it turned into an empire of its own, and used the levies from the mambers to maintain overwhelming sea power, which set the Spartans and their allies as the land power and Athens and its allies as the sea power - a situation which ked to the 27-year war known erroneously as the Peloponnesian War (431-404 BCE) - it encompassed the Greek world from Sicily to the Black Sea.
What are facts about the Trojan Horse?
The original meaning of "Trojan Horse" was something that masquerades as one thing but is really something else. The Greeks built a large wooden horse to present as a gift to the people of Troy. But, inside, the Greeks hid their soldiers so they could gain access to the City; the Trojans (people of Troy) brought the horse into their fortified city and while they slept, the Greek soldiers emerged from their hiding place inside the horse and opened the gates of the city. The rest of the Greek army could then enter the city; they overpowered the Trojans and won the war.
Ever since, the term "Trojan Horse" has been used to describe any situation in which clever deception is used to "win" in an oppositional situation (i.e. to win over an opponent). The term does not always need to be used in a military sense. Overall, Trojan Horse means being conquered or fooled by clever deception, and often with danger as an underlying theme.
With the advent of computer viruses, the term has become more well-known as a small computer program designed to look like one thing which is often a desirable thing (a video; an MP3 song; a popular downloadable file; a popular image), but the program delivers a way to "invade and conquer" an unsuspecting person's personal computer. The intent is to make each infected computer do a malicious task, to gain personal information, or to invade more computers that might give a better "return" to the computer criminal's goals.
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Describe the Persians' attributes as rulers?
Having gained and consolidated the empire, Persia set about establishing internal and external security, effective government with local rule, controlled by Persian provincial governors, overseen by the king and his council. Persia applied fair taxes and tried to promote prosperity.
What form of empire was established under Cyrus the Great?
The usual type. Regions were governed by a Persian governor (satrap) appointed by the king, who used city and tribal leaders to do the detailed governing. Taxes and levies of soldiers and warships were imposed by the satrap. A lingua franca (Aramaic) was established to facilitate communication and commerce.
The city of Hannibal's located in what state?
Carthage was located in North Africa, presently Tunisia.
What is the significance of the battle of the Plataea?
It completed on land the repelling of the Persian invasion begun at the sea battle of Salamis the year befre.
What were the outcomes of the Peloponnesian War?
Athens lost its empire. Sparta gained temporary ascendancy until defeated by Thebes 30 years later. Greece was devastated and weakened. Persia, defeated nearly a century earlier, was able to dictate a peace. Macedonia was able to exert hegemony over Greece, and defeat Persia.
When was Troy defeated by the Greeks?
Legend has it that it was in the 12th Century BCE. We have no conclusive historical or archaeological evidence of this, but the varied stories sung by the bards for hundreds of years, before the invention of alphabetic writing allowed written narrative records, may have some elements of fact in them.
What caused the outbreak of the Roman Civil War?
The Roman civil wars ran sporadically over about a hundred years. It began when a Tribune of the Plebs Tiberius Gracchus attempted to restore the public lands filched by the aristocracy from the common land used by the poor small farmers (who also constituted the army). He was murdered, his brother after him, and the political fabric and stability of the Republic was fatally disrupted. This was accentuated by Gaius Marius who, to get the numbers of soldiers necessary to repel the Germanic invasions, enlisted the non-propertied class into the army. After their term, these had no farms to return to, and had to rely on their generals to get them a livelihood. This gave the generals large followings, and they used this to advance their own power. Sulla tried to rebalance things, but these competing generals reversed his settlement after he died, and the competition ended up with the war between Pompey and Caesar. The winner Caesar made himself dictator for life to control affairs, but his assassination ended that stabilisation. Then his heir Octavian (later Augustus) with Marc Antony warred against the killers and won. Octavian and Marc Antony ruled the empire, quarreled and warred, with Antony defeated. Octavian instituted a settlement in which, while claiming to restore the Republic, gave himself reserve powers and control of the legions to avoid competition between ambitious generals. This settlement lasted for a couple of hundred years.
What did the Trojans have when the Greeks sailed from Troy?
Peace and quiet.
Not quite. The city was razed, so they didn't have that, and those not killed were taken home as slaves in the ships, or sold into slavery locally.
Maybe you meant 'sailed for Troy'. Remember, people will answer the question you ask, not the one you have only in your mind.
Put as much care into your question as you expect others to do when answering you.
What happened to Helen after the war?
Her husband took her back to Sparta when she eventually died it says that Helen in the underworld went for rebirth making it her second time for rebirth she was born again this time as a demigod from the god Aphrodite when she died again she was sent to the isle of the blest
What conflict caused the battle of marathon?
The Persians were concerned becaus mainland Greek cities were supporting their daughter citise in Ionia who were revolting against Persian rule. They sent a punitive expedition which capteured Eretria but was defeated by Athens and Plataia at Marathon.
When was the battle of Kadesh?
About 1274 BCE in today's Syria, between the Egyptian and Hittite empires.
Other than the explanations offered in the legend why do you think the Greeks went to war with Troy?
Our sources are mostly reliant on the epic poems which were oral until writing was invented nearly 500 years later, so the accounts are much distorted.
The best guess is that it was a coordinated series of pirate raids on the east coast and islands of the Aegean Sea, which for about ten years looted and devastated the area, culminating in the capture of the city of Troy.
Who fought in the battle of Salamis?
A combined southern Greece fleet led by Sparts against a Persian fleet drawn from Phoenician, Asian Greek cities and Egypt.
What caused the peloponnesian war to begin?
Athens imposed a trading ban on Megara, a member of the Peloponnesian League, designed to ruin it. Megara had the League demand its raising, and when Athens refused war broke out.
