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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
What problems did the Greeks have during the battle of Troy?
The Greek expedition was a looting one. A rich trading city like Troy was their primary target, but without a siege train they could not breach the walls, and they did not even have the resources to lay siege and starve it out.
So after their initial assault failed, they went off looting the eastern Mediterranean coast for the next nine years.
After they had taken the best pickings, they returned in the 10th year for the richest prize - another attempt on Troy. Again they failed to capture the city, and the legend says that they got a party inside the city wall by the wooden horse ruse, opened the gates and captured the city.
Why did phalanx attack followed by a cavalry charge at Gaugamela?
Darius had a much larger army and so Alexander couldn't afford to fight on the defensive, he had to go for the kill and hit the enemy.
The Macedonian Phalanx was a meat grinder, it only worked so long as it had momentum, so it hard to march forward, the Sarissa's whittling down the enemy front. The staggered line allowed Alexander to provide only a short attack for Darius, helping to preventing a flank attack. It, however left the right flank vulnerable which is why Alexander had to move out to the right to draw out Bessus, pin him and snap back to attack Darius which would cause either the death of Darius or Darius to leave the field, leaving the Persian's incapacitated. A cavalry charge is a frightening thing and not many people can stand against it, in Alexander's basic 'Hammer and Anvil' the Phalanx would push the enemy back and Alexander would push them back onto the phalanx, trapping the enemy infantry. Evident at 3 of this 4 set piece battles. It was a brilliant plan but one that had to be executed to perfection and for that, the great quality of the troops and able captains deserve credit.
His clothes were look pretty similar to Roman clothes, "Togo"
Why did Sparta feel threatened by Athens during 400s BC?
Be cause Athens wanted even MORE power so Sparta started war and WON! They then took over there government and made it a dictatorship.
How did the Greeks achieve victory against the Persian invasion in 490 and 481bce?
In 490 BCE Athens and its ally Plataia defeated a Persian punitive expedition at Marathon
by attacking the Persian infantry when its cavalry support was absent.
In 481 there was no battle as there were no Persians forces in mainland Greece.
In 480 BCE the southern Greek alliance fleet defeted the Persian fleet by splitting the fleet at Salamis and defeating it in detail.
In 479 BCE the Greek alliance defeated a depleted Persian army (half had been sent home because it could not be supported in Greece when its sea supply line had been cut by the loss of its naval power at Salamis) at Plataia by fighting on rough ground where the persian cavalry could not operate. They also destroyed the remainder of the Persian fleet at Mykale on the shore as it was now too weak to come out for a sea battle.
Thebes was , at different times , allied with Sparta when it was mutually beneficial to both . For example there was a Theban contingent , The Sacred Band , with Sparta at the Battle of Thermopylae . (Thebes effectively ended Spartan influence and prestige by defeating the Spartans at the Battle of Leuctra .)
Why were the Persians their own cause of defeat by the Greeks in the Persin war II?
First define Persian War II. The Persian War ran 499-449 BCE - it had several phases - Ionian Revolt, Persian punitive expedition against Eretria and Athens, Persian invasion of mainland Greece, Greek counter-offensive. Which among this are supposed to be 'Second Persian War', 'Second Persian War' and 'Third Persian War'?
Why do people say that the Battle of Thermopylae saved saved democracy for fututre generations?
Because they are ignorant of the reality. The battle of Thermopylai was a holding action to force a sea battle to destroy the Persian fleet. The sea battle failed and the force holding the pass of Thermopylai dispersed. It had no positive success.
And none of the Greek states were democracies at that stage, so they could not have saved democracy.
It did however stand as a symbol of fighting tenaciously against the odds. It also stood as a symbol of sacrifice for others - the Spartan contingent continued to hold the pass to let the other contingents escape, and were all killed, sacrificing themselves for their allies.
Were ancient Athens and Sparta more different than the same?
The Athenians were Ionian Greeks, the Spartans were Doric Greeks. They shared the same gods, and values, bonded in the Amphictyonic cultural league, participating in the same Games.
Some times they were allies, sometimes enemies.
The same differences and similarities affected all Greek city-states at various times. It also exists in all cultures throughout the world , then and now. Thats humans.
What rights did most male citizens enjoy in the Roman republic?
They had the right to vote on wheter to declare war or not. They had the obligation to follow that decision.
It oversimplifies Greek city-state politics to centre the problems on eg Athens.
The centurie-old inter-city wars and changing alignments culminated in their being unable to provide a cohesive opposition to Macedonia. All shared responsibility for this.
How were the Spartans defeated at Thermopylae?
They were part of a larger Greek force which was withdrawn. The Spartan contingent selflessly remained to hold the pass when the force was withdrawn to let them escape, and was eventually overwhelmed.
For centuries the tales of the Trojan War were sung by the bards. As these bards (rhapsodes) made up their performance (along the general theme) as they went along from a collection of stock phrases they memorised, each bard not only delivered different versions from the other, but also each of their own performances was different.
After syllabic writing was adopted in Greece in the 8th Century BCE, versions began to be written down. The most popular one was the one attributed to Homer 'the blind poet of Chios'. Whether the tradition is fact, whether Homer was indeed an individual - the individual - or represented a group or series of bards, is unknown, however it is convenient to simply use the word Homer, even though the stories were delivered for hundreds of years before about 725 BCE when 'Homer' is considered to have been recorded.
The text we have today is considerably different from then. Ancient sources comment on the endless versions and variants which came into circulation in the following centuries. Peistratos, tyrant of Athens two centuries later, commissioned a team of scholars to try to purify the texts. It is indicative of the licence taken in even this apparently noble endeavour that it became a joke in Athens that this 'purified' text was perverted to support Athens' case in the current dispute it had with Megara over the ownership of the island of Salamis.
Some misguided scholars even today work on the holy grail of trying to retrieve the 'original' text which of course never existed as such.
What happened during the Battle of Salamis?
The sea Battle of Salamis was fought between an alliance of southern Greek city-states and the Persian Empire in September 480 BCE in the strait between the mainland and Salamis, an island in the Saronic Gulf opposite Athens.
It marked the high-point of the second Persian invasion of Greece which had begun in 480 BCE.
In an earlier attempt to destroy the Persian fleet, which threatened the Greek cities in the Peloponnese and so kept their armies at home instead of uniting against the Persian army, and to expose the Persian sea supply line to closure, the Greeks decided to hold the Persian land advance at the Thermopylae pass and so force the Persians to engage in a sea battle to continue their advance. If the Persian fleet was destroyed, they could not supply their army or threaten the Greek cities, which would allow them to assemble thir full power against Persia.
Unfortunately for the Greeks, the Persians had the best of the sea battle, and they had to withdraw their fleet. As there was now no reason to hold the pass, it was abandoned.
The Greek fleet reassembled in the Strait between Salamis Island and Athens on the mainland. By a ruse they persuaded the Persians that they were going to flee through the western end of the strait and so the Persianns split their superior fleet in two to seal off the imagined escape route. This evened up the numbers of ships on both sides, and when the Persians came through the Strait, they were further split by an island in the middle of the Strait, giving the Greek fleet local superiority. The Persian fleet was defeated and the remnant took refuge across the other side of the Aegean Sea, leaving the resupply line unprotected. The Persians, unaable to feed the army through the oncoming winter, sent half of it home.
In the following summer, without the Persian amphibious threst to their cities, the Greeks were able to concentrate their armies at Plataia and defeat the remaining Persian army and its Greek allies. Simultaneously the Greek navies eliminated the remaining Persian navy at Mycale. Athens then led an anti-Persian alliance, which was based on the Athenian navy, making Athens dominant and effectively creating an Athenian empire which remained dominant until destroyed by a coalitiom of a Spartan-led Greek cities with Persian support 70 years later.
Why did the Greeks fight a war against the Persion Empire?
Persia was attempting to include the Greek cities within its empire to stabilise its borders. The Greek citiy-states objected.
i don't care
i am bord
What influenced Ashoka the Great after the Kalinga war to become a Buddhist?
He felt remorse and guilty after seeing the devastation and the bloodshed the Kalinga war had created.
What role did Augustus play in the golden Age?
The term often used is the Augustan Golden Age of Literature. However it went further.
After reforming the constitution to put an end to self-seeking aristocrats plunging the empire into civil wars, he manipulated the political process and set himself as commander of the legions. For the first time the provinces settled down into relative peace and prosperity.
Within this environment Augustus was able to patronise the city and arts. His personal testament Res Gestae Augustusclaims to have found Rome a city of bricks, and left it a city of marble. He lists the ceremonial and arts he initiated and supported. Roman culture, always in the shadow of Greek culture, began to flourish, even if based on the Greek model of poetry, and copying Greek artwork.
Augustus appointed Mycaenus as cultural minister to promote the arts, and he encouraged poets, satirists, playwrights, painters, sculptors and philosophers to contribute.
Perhaps you meant 'Myrmidons' - if so , the Myrmidons were Greek warriors renown for their bravery and skills as fierce and aggressive warriors . In Homer's epic 'The Iliad' they were led by Achilles .
Athenians or Spartans had hubris?
The Athenians , only because they came to grief during the Peloponnesian Wars by overestimating their powers to overwhelm Sparta .
What wars occured in ancient Greece?
Greece was comprised of over 2,000 independent city-states, which fought each other regularly on various pretexts and rivalries. Add in foreign invasions such as the Persians, Macedonians and Romans, there were always wars going on over a thousand years. It was much like today's world where each year brings a war of some sort - minor and major.
