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Horses and Cavalry from Xenophon in Ancient Greece to the American Civil War, and in New York City
Greek and Roman History

Horses and Cavalry from Xenophon in Ancient Greece to the American Civil War, and in New York City

05/01/2024 Bruce Strom 0

From antiquity, in combat, horses had three roles: hauling supplies, fighting in highly mobile cavalry regiments, sometimes pulling chariots in ancient times, and enabling generals to quickly survey the battlefield. From ancient times, in both war and peace time, technological improvements meant horses could be used more effectively. Improved harnesses made chariot warfare common throughout the Ancient Near East, quite often several archers would ride in the chariot. In the Old Testament, we read that King Ahab died when an arrow struck him in his chariot, likely he was standing next to an archer. […]

Summary of Homer’s Iliad: Warrior Culture of Ancient Greece
History

Summary of Homer’s Iliad: Warrior Culture of Ancient Greece

10/28/2023 Bruce Strom 3

All ancient cultures were warrior cultures, out of necessity. War was a deadly business, if an ancient city-state lost the war the city would be plundered, often the military age men would be slain, and the women and children would be sold into slavery. In ancient Athens, a quarter of the population were slaves, and in ancient Rome about forty percent of the population were slaves. Most of these slaves were either born into slavery or were captured during war, some were captured and sold by pirates. […]

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. […]

Heraclitus, Pre-Socratic Philosopher, Inspiration for Stoics and Clement of Alexandria
Philosophy

Heraclitus, Pre-Socratic Philosopher, Inspiration for Stoics and Church Fathers

08/19/2023 Bruce Strom 1

What can we learn from reflecting on the surviving fragments of Heraclitus, the Pre-Socratic Philosopher? Many of his pithy sayings inspired the later Cynic and Stoic Philosophers, and the Church Fathers, including Clement of Alexandria and Hippolytus of Rome. These sayings by Heraclitus include: “God is day and night, winter […]

The Life, Adventures, and Philosophy of Xenophon, General and Student of Socrates
Greek and Roman History

The Life, Adventures, and Philosophy of Xenophon, General and Student of Socrates

08/03/2023 Bruce Strom 0

Was Xenophon a warrior, a historian, or a philosopher? Xenophon is one of the rare ancient authors whose entire corpus of major works have survived, putting him in the company of Plato and St Augustine, he was highly regarded among ancient and medieval scholars, though hyper-critical modern scholars tend to deprecate him. He was a student of Socrates and wrote several works featuring Socrates, including a fascinating collections of his Stoic-like sayings in the Memorabilia. […]

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. […]

Hesiod Works and Days
Philosophy

Hesiod: Works and Days, Early Greek Moral Philosophy

03/10/2023 Bruce Strom 2

Hesiod is a grouchy old farmer who mistrusts ‘lords’” but does not advocate changing the society. “He believes in justice, honesty, conventional piety, self-reliance, self-denial, foresight, and above all, WORK. He dislikes city folk, the sea, women, gossip and LAZINESS. He delivers a maxim like ‘Don’t urinate where the Sun can see you’ with the same earnest convict that he advises judges not to take bribes, his brother to avoid pride, and the farmer to get two nine-year-old oxen and a forty-year-old hired hand. […]

Apeleius Golden Ass
Literature and Myths

Metamorphosis of Apuleius, the Golden Ass, Possible Inspiration for Pinocchio

03/01/2023 Bruce Strom 0

The basic plot of the book is our young man Lucius spies a witch who has learned to transform herself into various types of birds. When she is gone, he tries out the same potions, but by grabbing the wrong flask, he is turned into a donkey, not a talking donkey, but a braying donkey who has kept his human intelligence and human tastes. Though there are scattered penitential regrets, mostly our donkey is able to spy on the crimes and indiscretions of both robbers and cheating lovers to provide the reader with many titillating tales. In the final chapter, the goddess Isis appears to him in a dream, telling him what he needs to do to be transformed back into a human. […]