Battle of Salamis

Robin Waterfield Reflects on Xenophon’s Anabasis in Persia, and Other Greco-Persian Conflicts
Greek and Roman History

The Historian Robin Waterfield Reflects on Xenophon’s Anabasis in Persia, and Other Greco-Persian Conflicts

10/05/2023 Bruce Strom 1

The Greek hoplite infantry forces were the best warriors of their time, they were eagerly employed as mercenaries in the ancient world. The Greeks won the Battle of Cunaxa, and although Artaxerxes was wounded in the battle, his younger brother Cyrus died fighting. The Greek forces were stuck thousands of miles from home, but the Persian forces of Artaxerxes were fearful of directly attacking them. At first, the Persians guided them north towards the Greek colonies of the Black Sea, but then they double-crossed them, killing many of their generals. The Greeks simply elected new generals, with Xenophon now leading their forces, as they first fought the Persians, then mountain tribesmen, fighting for provisions, as they retreated to the Greek colonies on the shores of the Black Sea. […]

Ancient Warrior Culture - Ancient Greece, Rome, Israel
History

Ancient Warrior Societies, Blog 3, Warfare in the Old Testament

08/25/2023 Bruce Strom 9

Warfare is mentioned over three hundred times in the Old Testament, swords four hundred times. Ancient Israel was caught in many of the ancient wars since it was in the cross-roads of trade routes between Mesopotamia and Egypt. Since Judah was mountainous, its armies relied heavily on infantry, but the Bible mentions that King Ahab of the Northern Kingdom had chariots, and that he was felled by arrow probably shot by a composite bow. Assyria and Babylon had cavalry archers on horseback, but not Egypt or Israel. An Israeli chariot had three horses pulling three men, a driver with a spear, an archer, and a shield bearer. We know from our Sunday School stores King David slew Goliath with a sling, but the ancient slings were not the puny toys we imagine, the sling in the ancient world was a deadly combat weapon. A skilled slinger could sling a rock over 120 miles per hour, faster than the fastest fast ball. […]

Ancient Warrior Culture - Ancient Greece, Rome, Israel
History

Ancient Warrior Societies, Blog 2, Ancient Greek and Roman Armies and Navies

08/25/2023 Bruce Strom 11

The Greek innovation to ancient warfare was their hoplite warrior phalanx, a formation eight to ten rows of a hundred or more warriors, sometimes extending a quarter of a mile. The shields of the front row would interlock, and the entire formation would press upon the enemy, the soldiers would first throw their spears then jab with their swords from behind their shields, strictly maintaining their position. This required training and practice, the Athenians expected their nobles to drill during the year, the Spartans had a year-round military the practiced year-round. […]

Ancient Warrior Culture, Slavery, Concubines, Ancient Greece, Rome, and Israel
History

Ancient Warrior Culture, Blog 1, War, Slaves, and Concubines in Ancient Greece, Rome, and Israel

08/23/2023 Bruce Strom 13

The Greeks were the most formidable fighting force in the Near East. The mighty Persian empire loaded their army on ships to fight what they thought would be an easy victory, but were decisively defeated by Athens and Sparta and their allies both on land and on sea in two separate wars. This established the reputation of the Greeks, later a Persian prince, Cyrus the Younger, hired a Greek hoplite infantry army to fight for the crown of Persia. The Greeks dominated the battle, but Cyrus was killed in the fighting. Losing their patron, the Greeks were forced to fight their way through the Persian Empire back to the Black Sea and then to Greece. This showed that the mighty Persians were vulnerable, later Alexander the Great of Macedon would conquer all of Persia and some of India also.

The Greeks may have been the founders of Western Civilization, but they were first and foremost a warrior society. If the Greeks weren’t formidable warriors they would have been conquered by the mighty Persian Empire, which means that there would be no Socrates, no Plato, no Xenophon, the Greeks would not have been able to leave us a cultural legacy. […]

Summary of Greco-Persian Wars, Herodotus, Plutarch and Aeschylus Celebrate Greek Victory
Greek and Roman History

Summary of Greco-Persian Wars, Ancient Historians Herodotus, Plutarch and Aeschylus Celebrate Greek Victory

07/05/2023 Bruce Strom 2

The wars between Greek city-states, and Persian influence in these wars, continued after a short peace, and lasted another generation, exhausting the Greek city-states, leading to their subjection of Philip of Macedon and Alexander the Great. The lesson that Alexander learned from of all these wars, starting with the Greco-Persian Wars, and from Xenophon’s leading the Greek mercenary armies from the heart of the Persian Empire, Babylon, back to Greek territory, was that the Greek hoplite armies were vastly superior to the Persian fighting forces. This meant for Alexander the Great that the Persian Empire was ripe for the taking. […]

Greek and Roman History

Summary of the Peloponnesian Wars Between Athens and Sparta

11/25/2022 Bruce Strom 4

Why study the Peloponnesian wars? One main reason is: You cannot understand the Platonic dialogues without first understanding the history of the Peloponnesian Wars, because so many of the leading figures of this period are referenced in the Platonic dialogues, and we can learn many moral lessons from the war, which changed the Greek city-states forever.
The history of the war includes many interesting personalities, including Pericles, the founder of the radical democracy of Athens who died in the first years of the war, and Alcibiades, the ladies’ man and charismatic personality who was a leader of all three sides of the antagonists of the war, and we have the Spartan general Lysander who spared Athens from destruction when she lost the war. […]

Greek and Roman History

Plutarch: Lives of Aristides and Cimon, Formation of the Delian League After the Greco-Persian Wars

06/01/2022 Bruce Strom 1

Why did the Ionian Greeks reject the Spartan leadership under the Pausanius, and why did they plead for Athens to take up the liberation of the Asian Greek colonies from the Persians, leading to the founding of the Delian League? Simply put, the Delian allies were impressed by both the military acumen and integrity of the two Athenian generals Aristides the Just, and Cimon. Also, the Spartans embarrassed Cimon, who sought to reconcile Athens and Sparta, which contributed to the outbreak of the Peloponnesian Wars. […]