Ancient Wars

Yes, the Assembly made all the decisions and the Council implemented them. Pericles therefore didn't rule, he had to persuade the Assembly to pass any proposals he made, and he didn't always succeed, even though he arranged the ostracism (banishment) of his chief opponent

Thucydides son of Olorus.

Sparta fought very many battles over hundreds of years. Is there a particular era which you are interested in?

A coalition of Greek city-states fought the invading Persian army and its Greek allies outside the Greek city of Plataea in 479 BCE. The defending Greek army of armoured foot soldiers kept to the rough ground to negate the Persian cavalry, then engaged and defeated the unarmoured Persian infantry. At the same time a Greek fleet swooped on the remnants of the Persian fleet at Mycale and captured it. This combined action ended the invasion of mainland Greece by the Persian king Xerxes.

Rougher terrain was favoured by armoured infantry to protect them from cavalry and vice versa. However rough terrain also made it difficult for a phalanx to maintain its tight formation, which led to the Romans developing open formations.

Very wet weather made it difficult for cavalry and impeded infantry manoeuvrering.

Other extremes of wet, dry, cold, hot each had their own deleterious effects, and led to campaigning in summer. In the earlier periods when the army was largely comprised of farmers, , campaigns were also delayed until after the harvest had been gathered in.

The Greek city-states in Asia Minor were originally colonies of the Greek cities of mainland Greece, and they called on their mother cities for support when in trouble.

When these city-states within Darius' empire in Asia Minor revolted, the mainland Greek city-states Eretria and Athens sent forces to support them, and in the process burnt down the Persian provincial capital of Sardis.

To prevent further interventions Darius sent a punitive expedition to take control of the two cities and install local Greek tyrants sympathetic to his cause to control them, and act as a warning to other mainland Greek cities not to intervene in Asia on behalf of the Greek cities which had been their colonies. This expeditionary force captured Eretria but was defeated at the battle of Marathon in 490 BCE by Athens and its ally Plataea.

He planned a second stronger attack but died before he could mount it, leaving it to his son Xerxes to carry it through. That expedition also failed at the battles of Salamis, Plataea and Mycale.in 480-479 BCE.

Attacks by Hoplite infantry formations presented a dangerous battlefield situation for the ancient Persians. In situations where the Persians were relying on their light infantry, it became a challenge to defeat the hoplite heavy infantry attacks. One method was to establish an aray of archers some distance from a hopelite formation. Far enough away to prevent a spear attack, but close enough for archery arrows. With their light cavalry, the Persians would attack each flank of the hoplite formation. The cavalry attacks would force the hoplite formation to stop its march and defend each side of their formation. This allowed the large Persian archery force to shower the immobilized and distracted hopelites. The combined counter offensive of the Persians, the archers and the light cavalry would defeat the hoplite army.

The Spartan Brasidas and the Athenian Cleon were both killed in the battle of Amphipolis in 422 BCE.

It was fought to protect the Spartan and Greek homeland from the invading Persian Empire.

The legion disappears from surviving Roman records after ca. AD 120 and there is no extant account of what happened to it.

The pierrier is a stone throwing device and is used to cover a number of different types of war engine. Pierriers were employed either to smash walls or to throw projectiles over them.
All pierriers were made from wood. There are different types: the traction trebuchets, counterweight trebuchets, onagers (mangonels) and balistas (springalds).
Of course, the sling shot was the very first type.

The Gauls sacked Rome. They tried to seize the fortress on top of the Capitoline Hill, but did not manage, so they besieged it. Many of them died when an epidemic broke out, so they negotiated with the Romans. They left in exchange for a ransom of 1,000 pounds of gold.

The Athenian empire versus an alliance we call the Peloponnesian League - a coalition of city-states mainly from the Peloponnesian Peninsula led by Sparta.

Ramesses II at the Battle of Kadesh fought the army of the Hittite Empire .

The Greeks lost in the battle of the hot gates, but the 300 held the place for the rest of the army and navy to win now that the 3 days that were forbidden to fight were over.

By blocking the pass at Thermopylae the Persians were forced into a sea battle at Artemesion nearby in order to try to outflank the pass. The Greek fleet was waiting to pounce to defeat the Persian navy in order to eliminate the threat it posed to the Greek cities. Unfortunately for the Greeks, they lost the sea battle and had to withdraw. The blocking force at Thermopylae, no longer required. withdrew back to their cities, the Spartan and Thespian contingents staying behind to cover the withdrawal and being eliminated.

After peace was made between the Persian Empire and the Delian League led by Athens, Athens converted the League into an empire of its own, continuing to tax the cities of the League and spending the proceeds on itself - beautifying the city, putting half its own population on the public payroll, and maintaining a war fleet to dominate the Greek world and to collect the annual taxes from the Greek cities.

Destruction of the Persian fleet meant the eventual failure of the Persian attempt to incorporate the mainland Greek city-states within the Persian Empire.

Iron weapons gave greater penetration than bronze ones. The phalanx was a tightly packed body of men who formed a mass momentum to impact into or receive impact from opposing formations. By their compactness, their shields also provided a protection from missiles.

The Greek city-states out their surplus populations to form new cities, displacing indigenous occupants. These new cities themselves became overpopulated and sent out colonies of their own. This way the Mediterranean Sea coast was taken over by hundreds of Greek city-states.

It was not the Greeks, it was Athens and its ally Plataia.

The Athenians waited on the edge of the Plain of Marathon for reinforcement from Sparta. Then saw the superior Persian cavalry being embarked on ships and ran down and defeated the unsupported inferior Persian infantry.

Nothing would have changed, other than today we would not have an interesting story to tell. It had no military or political effect.