Ancient Wars

By the same means that the First Citizens had for a couple of hundred years - the system established by Augustus was: 1. Taking the powers of a Tribune of the Plebs which gave the right of veto, the right to introduce legislation, and personal immunuty. 2. Taking the powers of a magistrate outside the city of Rome, which gave personal immunity and the right to direct affairs throughout the empire. 3. Allocating to himself the frontier provinces, which was where the legions were stationed, so he had control of the army.

There were ten generals (strategos) - one from each tribe commanding their tribal contingent. The nominal war leader was the Polemarch Callimachus. The story is that, as they waited for an opportunity to attack, each of the ten took it in turns day about to be commander. On the tenth day when the battle was actually joined, it was the turn of Miltiades.

He had gotten new weapons for his army to use during war!

The disease that devastated the Athenians has been a matter of debate . The loss of Pericles from the disease compromised the Athenian war effort and may have led to the defeat of Athens by the Spartans due to a lack of quality leadership . The disease itself remains a moot point .

Because it one side was based in the Peloponnesian Peninsula, home of the Dorian Greeks led by Sparta.- the other side was the empire established by Athens. The fighting was initially around the Peloponnese Peninsula, but it spread throughout the Greek world east to Asia Minor and west to Sicily as the war continued over its 27-year course.

Present day Lebanon.

The Greek world was spread around the entire Mediterranean and Black Sea littorals as independent city-states.

The Persian Empire absorbed the ones in the east, including Asia Minor, northern mainland Greece and the Islands. This remained to varying degrees for two hundred years until the Macedonian Alexander the Great captured the Persian Empire in the latter part of the 4th Century BCE.

The were expansionary and used their military and financial power to interfere in cities outside their empire. At the brink of war over Athens' treatment of the Peloponnesian League city of Megara, they were given the opportunity by the League to back off and refused. War ensued.

The war was not a contest for control of Greece, it was between the Athenian alliance/empire and the Spartan-led Peloponnesian alliance. Athens was taking its power too far and the Peloponnesian League drew a line in the san which Athens ignored, bringing on the war.

One is the 'Roman nose'. Another is the toga.

Seriously, the Romans had a unique skill in government and war, which gave them a longstanding empire, and gave the empire the 'Pax Romana'.

There was no Greek empire. The Greek world comprised hundreds of independent city-states, which sometimes came together in temporary leagues.

If you refer to Alexander the Great, the answer is Greece being next door to Asia and in particular next door to the Persian empire. Greek relations with Persia had been tense since the Persians had tried to invade Greece. Persia also held a part of Thrace on the Balkan coast, next door to Greece. Alexander's policy was war and he defeated this empire. His own empire was basically a taken over Persian empire and extended over that area, apart from an area north of the Caucasus mountain and not extending north of Afghanistan as much.

This empire was so big that it was then divided between the Ptolemaic kingdom (Egypt), the Seleucid empire (the Asian possessions minus the northern coast and the eastern part of Anatolia, that is modern Turkey). the kingdom of Pergamon, the mentioned parts of Anatolia not under the Seleucids and Thrace) and Macedon (Greece minus southern Thrace and Epirus, which remained separate).

The Persians had to send half their army home as, with their sea supply line unprotected by their defeated fleet, they could not feed them in the oncoming winter.

This left the way open for the Greek cities to unite and defeat them in the next spring.

The war not only devastated southern Greece and left it weak, it didn't solve anything and the southern Greek city-states continued to fight each other after it was over. This left Philip, over 50 years later, with an easier target, and he was able to defeat the weakened and divided cities, which he manipulated and also defeated those who stood out against his march towards claiming hegemony of Greece.

Who else ever made such an arduous, an almost impossible trek across the Alps with his whole army and even if one did, who did ever stay in enemy territory for 15 years facing a vastly superior army hemming them in on every side but did not lost a single war in all those 15 years? Talk about making the impossible possible. That's Mission Impossible - Hannibal style. Addition: Of course Hannibal then lost the real one - Zama defending Carthage, and so the war. And he thought he was good too - in a apocryphal story, after the war, in discussing generalship with his conqueror Scipio, the latter asked Hannibal who were the greatest generals of all time in order of merit. He answered 'Alexander, Pyrrhus, Hannibal'. (no Scipio there). Scipio said with tongue in cheek: 'And what if I hadn't defeated you?' Hannibal said 'Hannibal would have been first.'

hell no, the Persians won way more against the Greeks. THEY are the not don't get the respect they deserve, because they were the strongest and most advanced army ever to rule. The impact has affected the reaches of the American bill of rights to the sistene chapel

It began with the attempted Theban takeover of Plataia. From there there were dozens of engagements, some major, some minor. Some significant ones (for their effects on the outcome of the war) were Delium, Sphacteria, Syracuse, Arginousai, Aigospotomai.

The ancient Greeks used the first catapults to fend off the Romans back in the B.C.'s. The earliest recorded date for the mangonel (fixed bowl) catapult is about 750 B.C. Catapults were used well in the middle ages until replaced by cannons.

It was a ploy to force a sea battle in the adjacent strait. The Greeks lost the sea battle, and most of the Greek land forces withdrew. As a failed military venture, it had no long term effects whatsoever other than to provide a basis for modern romantic tales of the last stand of the 300 Spartans.

A fifty-year war ensued 499-449 BCE, progressive battles swinging increasingly to the Greeks. Eventually the Persians gave up trying to impose peace on the Greeks and left them alone to go back to fighting amongst each other.

Nerva was a Roman Emperor who briefly ruled for less than two years. He ascended to throne at the age of 65.Although his rule was marred by financial difficulties and struggle for power with Roman army, he is credited for ensuring peaceful transition of power after his death. He also tried to restore liberties which were curtailed during previous autocratic governments. He is remembered as a wise and just ruler.

The Persian Empire contained hundreds of Greek city-states, many of which had revolted aginst Persian rule, encouraged by the mainland Greek city-states. Persia realise that this would continue unless the external Greek city-states were brought under control, so it decided to bring them all under control of Persian provincial governors and appoint local tyrants to keep them quiet.

Generals (strategos), because they regarded their naval forces as amphibious - the sailors would alternately fight as land forces when disembarked.

Rome was early on (say 500 BCE) a farming community covering about 50 square miles, with a citadel to defend in extremis. The Roman army comprised initially the peasant farmers turning out to repel predatory nomads or neighbours. To be in it you had to possess property. Non-propertied people were not fighting for anything, and so were unreliable; and also it was thought unfair to make them fight to protect others' property.

As the state became stronger, and population grew, it became necessary to steal the land of neighbours as the one-hectare dry farms were too small to subdivide amongs several sons. So they attacked neighbouring states to get it; the neighbours were also trying to do the same to them. Rome won some and lost some, but on average was more successful at land piracy and spread its control progressively through the Italian Peninsula and across the Padus River to the north into territory settled by the Gauls.

This citizen army (augmented by the Italian allies they had taken under their sway) sufficed until the Germanic peoples got on the move in the late 2nd Century BCE. After a disasterous defeat in Gaul, it became necessary to match the sheer numbers of Germans to recruit from the non-propertied class. This created a new type of solder. Farmers, when a campaign was over, returned to their farms with their share of the loot. These new soldiers had nothing to come back to and so relied on their generals to organise land for them, and this clientele gave the generals the clout to push their own interests, resulting in the civil wars. And of course long campaigns and garrisoning the growing empire turned the citizen warriors into a standing professional army.

After Sulla and Julius Caesar both failed to find a solution to the ambitious generals, Augustus short circuited this by allocating to himself the frontier provinces which is where the legions were and so deprived rivals of a military base. The army was by now completely professional with enlistment terms which grew from 16 to 20 years.

It was still open only to Roman citizens, however it included foreign auxiliariary units for such specialist tasks as archers, slingers, cavalry. And from the early 1st Century BCE the Italian allies were admitted to Roman citizenship, and over the years various other peoples and provinces in Spain, Gaul and Britain were admitted to citizenship. The way was opened finally in 212 CE when Caracalla opened citizenship, and therefore the army, to all free people in the Empire.

The Peloponnesian War was fought during the years 431-404 BCE.

Khorasan, Ariana & Afghanistan!