Ancient Greek Battle Tactics

Spartan. Soldiers would usually were a bronze muscled breastplate, a helmet with cheek plates, and also shin armor. They carried a bowl shaped shield made out of wood and bronze called a hoplon. It covered the users entire body from head to toe, but it was very heavy. If your team was retreating you would never drop your shield, if you did your family and everybody in Sparta would call you a coward.

The great Athenian general Miltiades came up with a shrewd battle plan. He decided to thin out the ranks in the center of the phalanx to strengthen the wings. During the battle, the Greek wings crushed the Persian wings and forced them to retreat. At the same time, the Persians in the middle managed to break through the weakened center of the phalanx. Instead of pursuing the retreating Persian wings, the Greek wings moved backward to attack the Persians that had broken through the Greek defenses. The Greek center then turned around so that they had the Persians surrounded. The Persians were slaughtered (5). According to the Greek historian Herodotus, the Persians lost 6400 men while te Greeks lost only 192 (4).

The Greeks, Trojans, and Spartans armies were very strategic and resourceful. They used battle forms, The Gods, their religion, and outside the box thinking to overcome battles and win wars. Tactics were highly impressive in the “Bronze Age” and are shown through the very impressive wars they have won. The Greeks used many tactics that included some strategies that are still used in today's

The Phalanx is one of the most safe war strategies in the ancient world. It could move in all directions and also obtained a big circular shield to protect the soldiers. The Greek phalanx was made up of 256 men, which was a square that was 16x16. This strategy was used to take down the Persians. The Greeks used about 10 foot spears in the phalanx, and the men also carried a sword in case a spear broke or a soldier got killed, they would be replaced(The Career of Alexander the Great).In order to have a Greek phalanx, they had to have thousands of trained men in the

Current militaries have benefitted from the principles of ancient Greek and Roman warfare by studying the ancient battles, tactics, and use of supplies to develop effective military plans. Current militaries study and debate historical turning points of the ancient battles to understand how the leaders planned and executed battles. The empires’ growth was due in part to the might and successes of their military. The strength of their militaries came from many factors including their use of armor, weapons, and military tactics. The empires’ leaders used these three advantages to create the superior armies of their time.

The conflict between Greece and Persia is one of great battles, these often discussed military forces in history are so great many films tell their tales. The conflict between these two civilizations great army’s, specifically, their differences in which they were comprised is what will be discussed in this paper. The Greek army utilized many great strengths, as well did Persia, never the less only one was ultimately victorious.

In addition to good leadership the greeks developed and employed successful battle tactics, which they were able to adapt to the topography, thus allowing them to sustain afight despite being grossly outnumbered (C). The most important tactic was the Hoplite Phalax, which was a wall of Greek infantry men with shields and long spears. This was effective for the Greeks because the advancing Persians had to travel through a very narrow path along the Malian Gulf to

In the Battle of Thermopylae, the much smaller Spartan army held off the Persian invasion at Thermopylae. In this battle the Greeks and the Persians were fighting. The regions were fighting because the Persians were trying to punish Athens for burning down a Persian city 25 years earlier, and the Spartans were trying to stop the Persians from getting into Greece and burning down the city of Athens. The battle took place at a narrow pass called Thermopylae in 480 B.C. The site of the battle was an advantage for the Spartans because they knew the area better and the pass was such a narrow pass that the Persian's large army, that outnumbered the Spartans 5 to 1, had a hard time getting soldiers through. While the Spartans were holding off the

This paper examines more closely the key features of the strategy including the technical superiority, leadership, prowess, planning, and strategy that the Greeks and Persians brought to bear as they prepared for battle. It is important to recognize that the battle of Thermopylae involved two great nations fighting against each other. The battle was an expression of nationhood, pride, power, authority, resourcefulness, with

In the reading “greek warfare” by hans van wees. Wess describes the the battle idea of the phalanx as a “push.” He viewed the phalanx as a intense head to hand combat in a close formation which lead to be terms of literally being pushed on the battlefield. He envisioned phalanx battles to have their army set up in depths. For example he quotes “there are hints that by the late 370s the spartan has adopted 12 as there normal depth.” Wess in this quote and in the text explains that different depths suited different battles and tactic. As the spartans found success within a depth of 12 as a dopth others used a depth of two and a longer length in attempt to surround a city. He also envisioned phalanx formation march to battle as difficult. he

Themistocles proved himself right when the Persians invaded in 480 B.C. and the Athenians came out victorious, with tremendous help from what became largest navy in Greece. Their navy would be a key factor in their battle plan during the Peloponnesian War. The Athenians were highly educated. During the classical period, Athens focused on passing on knowledge from one generation to the next. This system resulted in battle strategies formed by minds like no other.

The First Persian War took place at the Battle of the Marathon near Athens and it was known as one of the infamous battle between the Athenians and the Persians. In 501 B.C.E., a Greek tyrant named Aristogorus provoked the Persian rulers by instigating an uprising in Miletus and Ionia to revolt against the Persian Empire. In order to ward off the Persian Empire’s wrath, Aristogorus reached out to his compatriots on the mainland in Greece of Athens and Sparta. “Sparta refused, but Athens sent twenty ships-enough just to anger the Persians, but not to save Miletus.” Nevertheless, the Athenians conquered the Persian’s capital of Lydian in Sardis in order to steal the golds, but they accidentally ended up burning down the richest capital of Sardis.

One of the main components that defined the ancient world is war. During the era of expansion and conquest, wars were waged across lands near and far. By means of defense, revolts arose at this time of numerous battles as well as the formation of alliances. As a whole, war is a struggle for power. For instance, two great ancient civilizations, Greece and Persia, fought in a series of conflicts known as the Greco-Persian Wars. Herodotus, the historian who first wrote about the Persian Wars, once said, “Great things are won by great dangers.” All war is dangerous, yet the advancements made afterward help form civilizations and promote future prosperity. The Greco-Persian Wars were significant for world history because they paved the way for

In the Archaic Age, Hoplites were men armed with Hoplon shields and a single spear, and fought in combat shoulder to shoulder in a formation called a phalanx. For this formation to be successful, for the weaker left side not to break, staying in line and working as a group was a necessity. Most of these men were ordinary citizens, mostly farmers and peasants, and therefore the protection of territories relied on their will, in contrast to the Bronze Age where the upper class did most of the fighting. This change gave more power to regular people, and the ideas of democracy and assembly began to spread, it gave rise to the creation of the Polis, city-state. The issues and opinions of the individual soldiers became the new focused, they took

Alexander’s men also had long spears that proved very useful by providing more damage with a longer range. (Fisher, Alexander the Great; Seize the Night). The Romans placed their weaker soldiers in the front and the lighter armed soldiers in the back. This was because the front line is where you would be in the most danger, as they were not commonly attacked from behind. The Romans continued the use of the phalanx formation even though Alexander’s was much more powerful. The phalanx formation was the most dominant formation used in ancient times, which both the Romans and Alexandrians relied upon greatly. The phalanx formation is one of the prominent similarities between the two empires (Alexander,70).