Ancient Warfare
Archimedes (287-212 BCE)
Archimedes of Syracuse was one of the ancient world’s great scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. In mathematics, his work on geometry, particularly cones, spheres, and cylinders, was unsurpassed. He anticipated calculus and studied in depth hydrostatics, mechanics, matter, and force. He perfected the screw used in irrigation and solved many engineering problems associated with the use of the pulley, wedge, and…
Most Recent
Ancient Wars and Warfare – Near East
Assyrian Besiegers Wars and warfare played an important role in the societies of the ancient Near East. The peoples of the region waged war for three main reasons. They fought defensive wars to protect their territories from aggression and offensive wars to conquer new lands. They also fought civil wars,…
The Britons at war
The Celts regarded warfare as part of life, and, as in many societies the world over, it offered the young men an opportunity for initiation into manhood. Some primitive peoples had very elaborate and sometimes repugnant rites, but the process of growing up involved the selection of the fittest into…
Mons Graupius
Agricola’s battle formation at Mons Graupius. In AD 84 Agricola aimed to lure the tribes of the Scottish Highlands to battle by threatening the populated, fertile areas bordering the Moray Firth, sometimes using sea-borne raids. The British gathered under the leadership of one Calgacus and took up position on higher…
Revolt of the Maccabees, (168-143 B. C. E.)
The Jewish-dominated region of Judea rebelled against the religious oppression of the Seleucid king, Antiochus IV, and forged an independent nation-state in one of the world’s first successful guerrilla campaigns. For about a century after Alexander the Great had conquered the Persian Empire, the coastal zone southwest of Syria became…
The Man who would be Great King
Route of Cyrus the Younger, Xenophon and the Ten Thousand. Without the help of Cyrus, the younger son of Darius II, a Spartan victory over Athens might well have never happened. It was in spring 405 that Cyrus gave to Lysander another great sum of money and his thoughts on…
The Persian Empire in the Fourth Century
At the end of the fifth century, the rebellious brother of Artaxerxes II, known as Cyrus the Younger to differentiate him from the great founder of the dynasty, led a mixed force of barbarians and Greeks into the heart of the Persian Empire. The troops that confronted the armies of…