Читать книгу The Handy Military History Answer Book - Samuel Willard Crompton - Страница 9
ОглавлениеWho cast the first stone (of human history)?
How historians wish they knew! They could, then, cast all the blame and attribute all the subsequent mayhem to that person. But he remains anonymous to us.
Are we quite sure that it was a “he” or “him”?
Historians are not one hundred percent certain, but it seems very likely. Women are not inherently more moral or altruistic than men, but throughout human history they have shown much less propensity for settling matters by means of armed combat.
This does not mean women have not figured in the history of war, however. Far from it. Our best surmise is that many ancient battles and skirmishes—those which took place before the development of writing—may have been fought over who possessed the land, animals, and not so incidentally, women.
Can historians assign any sort of date to the beginning of armed combat?
They really can’t. Archeologists examine Stone Age tools, such as the Acheulan Axe, for clues, but we cannot be certain whether they were used in human-on-human combat or for scraping the skin from animals. What we can say, with some confidence, is that nearly all the things—or aspects—that we today identify with being human had evolved around 50,000 years ago and that it is quite likely that there was some armed combat by that time.
As to the age-old question of whether humans are naturally competitive or naturally cooperative, we cannot render any firm assessment. Both traits clearly exist within the great majority of humans, and it may be a matter of circumstance which trait is dominant at any place or time.
Is there any truth to the belief that precivilized warfare was largely ritual in nature?
Much of it probably was. Chiefs and shamans may well have organized the first battles of human history and done so in a way that minimized casualties. That does not lessen the impact of conflict in the lives of our ancestors, however. Some of them survived, and quite a few died in a time that has been accurately characterized as “red in tooth and claw” (the expression was coined by the nineteenth-century English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson).
What tools, or weapons, did ancient peoples use?
Between about 50,000 years ago and about 10,000 years ago, weapons were limited to the bone knife, the stone axe, and the throwing spear, known as the atlatal. By the time humans began settling into farming communities, however, roughly 10,000 years ago, their capacity for building larger, more effective weapons was apparent. At the same time, early farmers may have had fewer conflicts than nomadic peoples.
Where did humans first settle on the land?
There may have been some early human settlements in China and Meso-America, but the first truly successful settlements seem to have been in the Middle East. The area was cooler and drier than it is today, and a proliferation of plants and seeds made it an attractive place to settle. To the best of our knowledge, the area historians call the Fertile Crescent, ranging from southern Iraq to southern Turkey and northern Syria, was the first place where long-term human settlement succeeded.
Is there any truth to the biblical stories of a Great Flood and the disappearance of most of the human race?
That there was a Great Flood seems undeniable, because stories of the inundation appear in many tribal and national histories. It seems unlikely that it wiped out all the humans because if it did, we would not, today, possess the rich variety of DNA samples that geneticists use to trace human lineage. The idea that a God or gods would wipe out the “other” humans, leaving the more virtuous ones in control of the earth, is as old as civilization itself.
On balance, it seems that many—if not most—human groups have asserted that “God is on my side,” and that he or she is against the enemy. The trouble with this thought, is, of course, that the enemy is saying and thinking the same thing. Given that one contestant usually prevails, God or gods cannot answer the prayers of both.
Is there anything to the Homeric tales of Greece and Troy?
For a very long time, scholars believed that Homer—a blind, Greek poet who composed poetry in the eighth century B.C.E.—had invented the Trojan War. In 1871, however, the German archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) unearthed not one but seven levels of civilization on a Turkish hillside near the Aegean Sea. Although no single piece of evidence has ever emerged with the name “Troy” or “Trojan,” scholars generally believe that there is some truth to the Homeric tales.
A seventeenth-century painting by Anton Mozart depicts what one of the battles of the Trojan War might have looked like.
Where Homer lets us—his modern readers—down, time and again, is in his lack of detail concerning the average soldier; and civilian. To Homer, war was about the heroes, men like Achilles, Ajax, Hector, Paris, and even old King Priam. Homer tells us almost nothing about the struggles of the average soldier; historians do not even know what he looked like. Even so, most people who read Homer—whether in the original Greek or in translation—agree that he had a magnificent bird’s eye view of war, that he “saw” the battlefield better than any of his contemporaries.
Does archaeology tell us anything about the Greeks from that time?
It was, again, Heinrich Schliemann who did much of the work. Schliemann is often called the man that modern-day archaeologists love to hate, because his digs were so sloppy. He was in far too much of a hurry to get beneath the soil, and once there he dug so ferociously that thousands of artifacts were destroyed or lost. But we can thank Schliemann, first for discovering Hissarlik—the hillside in modern-day Turkey—and then for unearthing much of the Mycenaean civilization on the Greek mainland.
Is there a reason why so many great archaeological discoveries were made during the nineteenth century?
Literary scholars—who study the Old Testament and the works of such authors as Homer and Hesiod—led the way, but it was the men with their hands in the dirt—the nineteenth-century archaeologists—who made the most astonishing discoveries. A Frenchman found the ruins of ancient Assyria, an Englishman deciphered the Old Persian inscriptions on Darius’ rock in present-day Iran, and a German found what may have been the city of Troy and what was most certainly Mycenae.
At Mycenae, Schliemann unearthed enormous tombs, a throne room, and a suggestion of just how impressive the Mycenaean civilization was. His discoveries, naturally, led to another question: What happened to Mycenae and its people? To the best of our knowledge, they were overthrown by wild men from distant places: the barbaric folk that we often call the Sea Peoples.
What these men—and perhaps a score of others from that time—had in common was a classical education and a lot of time. Some were men of leisure and others had acquired their wealth the hard way, but they all believed the ancient world more fascinating than their own and were determined to ferret out its most remarkable ruins. Today there are far more archaeologists in the field, but few of them get to experience the amazing discoveries available to nineteenth-century amateurs, who literally turned studies of the ancient world on their heads.
How was bronze superior to copper, which was previously the preferred material for the making of weapons?
Bronze was much tougher. Perhaps around 7,000 years ago—or 5000 B.C.E.—people in the Middle East began to forge bronze by adding small amounts of tin to copper. The new technology spread slowly, but about 5,000 years ago, practically all the new civilizations—especially those along the river Nile and in the region we now call Iraq—were using bronze. As a result, the weapons of the new civilized peoples were quite impressive. The Egyptian army even had some early form of uniforms with the shafts of their spears being forged alike, displaying the same colors on their banners. For a time, the use of bronze gave the settled peoples an edge over their nomadic foes. This changed, however, when the nomads began using chariots.
How long have chariots been around?
Both chariots and the use of horses in battle are relative newcomers to the stage. The earliest horses of whom we have certain knowledge were too small—and weak in the back—to support human riders. Horses were “bred,” however, and by about 2000 B.C.E. they appeared on battlefields, usually on the side of the nomads.
The civilized people in these battles—the Egyptians, Babylonians, and so forth—were able to capture horses and learn the equestrian arts, but it took them a long time to catch up to the nomads in terms of the use of chariots. Chariot warfare came naturally to nomadic folk, who sent down rains of arrows against their more civilized foes. Even Egypt, which is often credited with pioneering the chariot, borrowed the original idea from a nomadic group.
How large were the armies of the Late Bronze Age?
They were quite small by modern standards. Egypt may have possessed an army of 50,000, but it is unlikely that any Pharaoh could mobilize, much less feed, one-fifth of that number at any one time. Sumer, and later Babylonia, possessed around the same average range of numbers.
What we would call modern-day methods of military conscription and large-scale armies had to wait until the turn of the first millennium B.C.E. Even then, feeding the men remained a large problem.
What happened to the Late Bronze Age societies?
Nearly all of them either perished or were greatly reduced in importance and strength. Around 1175 B.C.E., a series of invasions took place which brought low the Assyrian kingdom, the Hittites, and quite possibly the Mycenaeans too. Lacking any records from the other side, we have to use the expression “the Sea Peoples” to describe the impact of these invaders on the civilized part of the eastern Mediterranean.
The Sea Peoples may have come from Sicily and Sardinia; it’s equally possible that they came from the Black Sea and some of the Greek islands. In either case, the Sea Peoples came like a rush against the Hittites, Minoans, Assyrians, and even Egypt. The only remaining visual record of these peoples is contained in a bas-relief in Egypt.
Who was Ramses and why do we remember his reign so well?
The Pharaoh Ramses III (1186–1155 B.C.E.)—not to be confused with his more famous grandfather, Ramses II—left a telling set of inscriptions on a bas-relief in Egypt, including both an account of the invasion of the Sea Peoples and a pictorial representation of them. They seem “otherworldly” in the sense that aliens (in our movies and books) do today. Ramses III shows the Sea Peoples humbled by a valiant defense in the Nile River Delta. What he does not show is equally interesting: it may have been a close, near-run thing.
That the Sea Peoples nearly conquered Egypt demonstrates their strength and ferocity. On the bas-relief, Ramses III describes how the various Sea Peoples—he names six of their groups—attacked practically all the civilizations and how all except Egypt were laid low. Even in the case of Egypt, historians believe that the kingdom was badly damaged by their attacks and would not be strong again for several centuries.
Were the Sea Peoples alone responsible for all the devastation of the Late Bronze Age?
We think not. Ferocious as they were, the Sea Peoples were a passing phenomenon. Their actions, and the subsequent destruction, may have taken place over one or two generations. By contrast, the eastern Mediterranean was wracked by natural disaster and a fair amount of climate change, both of which likely contributed to the general breakdown of that part of the civilized world.
The ruins of the Grand Staircase at King Minos’ palace in Crete stands as a reminder of a once-great civilization that likely collapsed, in part, because of climate changes.
The Minoan civilization on Crete—named for the legendary King Minos—had already suffered cataclysmic destruction following the eruption of the volcano of Santorini on the Island of Thera. Scholars believe that this eruption, which happened around 1627 B.C.E., was so destructive that the tsunami which followed may have given rise to various tales of the Great Flood.
How low did the various civilizations fall?
Israel—or the twin kingdoms of Israel and Judah—survived the destruction fairly well. Egypt was staggered by the changes, but it remained the most stable place in the Middle East. Other areas—such as central Turkey and inland Greece—may have been set back by as much as 300 years.
Greece, perhaps most notably, fell into a period we now call a Dark Age. Very likely, good things were happening under the surface, but they were not visible. When Homer sang and played on his lyre, he did so about the heroes of the Mycenaean Age, a time which had come and gone. He did not expect that Greece would soon rise again.
Why do we sometimes call them the Hebrews and sometimes the Jews?
There is yet another name: the Israelites. Each of the names refers to the same people at different times in their history. What unites the three names is the religious element.
By around 1800 B.C.E., the Hebrews were one of the smaller, less warlike peoples of the Middle East, occupying sections of the land that is now the State of Israel. By around 1000 B.C.E., they called themselves Hebrews or Israelites with equal certainty, because they had established the Kingdom of Israel. The name Jews came a bit later.
Who represented the greatest threat to the Kingdom of Israel?
The Assyrians, who originated in what is now northern Iraq, were the most violent and bloodthirsty of all ancient world peoples. Their kingdom was known to its neighbors by about 1300 B.C.E., but their army became the terror of the Middle East during the ninth century B.C.E. Our knowledge of this comes not from their oppressed neighbors, but from the Assyrians themselves.
A team of French archaeologists unearthed the ruins of Nineveh in the 1830s. Astonished as they were by the massive walls and magnificent palace paintings—many of which depict kings, horses, and hunting—the archaeologists were even more impressed by the inscriptions. Translated, these inscriptions brag that the Assyrians had leveled one civilization after another, sometimes committing unspeakable atrocities, such as when they boast of having cut off 11,000 pairs of ears and 8,000 noses.
Are claims such as these to be taken seriously?
Historians have pondered that question ever since. Some have labeled the Assyrians the “Nazis” of the ancient world. In retrospect, however, it does not seem likely that the Assyrians could kill, decapitate, and mutilate so many people.
Killing large numbers of people—as Adolf Hitler found out—is hard work. It is much easier to make captives of them and have them produce something useful for the conqueror. Just as important, however, are the population figures. If the Assyrians really killed tens of thousands of people as they claim, the Middle East would—over time—have been depopulated.
Was there any limit to the Assyrian reach?
Yes. Like most ancient world conquerors, Assyrians faced a perennial problem of supplies. It was one thing to field an army of 50,000 men—as we believe they did—and quite another to keep those men in food and water. Therefore, although the Assyrians eventually conquered most of the Middle East, their hold on certain regions was quite fragile.
The high point of Assyrian conquest came during the late eighth and the early part of the seventh centuries B.C.E. The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by Assyria around 732 B.C.E., while the Kingdom of Judah—the southern part of the Hebrew domain—survived. Even as they approached the peak of success, however, the Assyrians began to experience stresses and strains within their empire. They had acquired too many enemies, and toward the end of the seventh century B.C.E., the various peoples turned on them.
How and when did the Kingdom of Assyria fall?
In 615 B.C.E., the Kingdom of Babylonia, 200 miles south of Assyria, established a firm alliance with three or four other peoples—some settlers and some nomadic—to combat Assyria. The fighting was fierce, but the allies overcame the Assyrians and burned their major cities. This was accomplished with such thoroughness that 300 years later, the Greek General Xenephon passed through the region and marveled at the ruins, saying he had no idea who those people had been.
Assyria’s downfall paved the way for a second rise of the Babylonian kingdom. Led by King Nebuchadnezzar II, the Babylonians attacked the Kingdom of Judah in 587 B.C.E. After a hard campaign, they knocked down the walls of Jerusalem and took many of the Hebrews as captives to Babylon. This was the beginning of what the Old Testament describes as the worst of times for the Hebrews and what commentators ever since have referred to as the “Babylonian Captivity.”
How long did the Hebrews stay as captives in Babylon?
They were in captivity for nearly seventy years. Most Old Testament scholars believe this was a pivotal time for the Hebrew people, during which they refined and defined their monotheistic beliefs. Just as important, however, were the military changes that took place in the Middle East.
This view of ancient Babylon as it looks today reveals a stark contrast to how it must have looked in the days of King Nebuchadnezzar II. On this very spot stood the famous Hanging Gardens that were one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
Assyria had been on top for about 300 years. Babylon held that position only for about seventy years before two newcomers—the Persians and Medes—swept aside all rivals to become the new super-kingdom.
Who were the Persians and Medes?
They were Aryan peoples—not Semitic—who arrived on the high plateau of what is now Iran sometime around 1000 B.C.E. For some time, they made little impact on the area, largely because they were nomadic peoples cast adrift among groups of settled and civilized folk. In or around 550 B.C.E., however, the Persians and Medes joined hands and carried out a series of conquests that took them to Turkey, the northern part of Arabia, and even to the western part of Afghanistan.
By 550 B.C.E., the Persians and Medes were led by King Cyrus (circa 585-529 B.C.E.), later known as Cyrus the Great. No reliable illustration of his physique exists, and we have to use our imagination to picture the King of Kings. Starting from modest beginnings, Cyrus became king of the Persians and Medes and then led his peoples to conquest. Time and again, he defeated more seasoned, practiced foes by using what we would call guerrilla tactics. Cyrus was more than a warlord, however. He had a vision of universal empire, and to that end, he practiced mercy toward many of the people he defeated.
When and how did Cyrus capture Babylon?
The year was 539 B.C.E., but the means have been debated ever since. Did Cyrus actually dam a section of the Euphrates River so his men could practically walk through a dry river bed? Was there a wholesale massacre of the Babylonian aristocracy? Cyrus, who was perhaps the most clever manager of public relations of his time, prevented the answers from becoming common knowledge.
One thing of which we are certain is that Cyrus announced that all the captives of Babylon—Hebrews, Semites, Assyrians, Aryans, and others—were henceforth free. This action alone makes Cyrus stand out from nearly all other conquerors of his time, and he went out of his way to cultivate that very image: that of the benevolent conqueror.
Where did the Hebrews go?
The only place that made sense. As soon as they were released, Hebrews began the long trudge back to the Kingdom of Judah, which King Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed fifty years earlier. On arriving in their homeland, the Hebrews found most of their cities and towns in wreckage. They began the long, difficult task of rebuilding, and in the process they renamed themselves the Jews.
The name clearly derives from the Kingdom of Judah, which was now rebuilt, but the precise intention of the word is unclear. Did the change from Hebrew to Jew signify that these were the same people who had now returned? Or did it mean they had been transformed by the Babylonian Captivity and would forever look on themselves as a different people? Scholars remain divided on this point, but the nomenclature was now permanent. They were henceforth known as the Jews.
Could Cyrus have conquered the entire Middle East?
He came close. But in around 529 B.C.E., he went on a campaign against the Massegete people in Central Asia and was killed, tradition has it, while engaged in battle against a tribal group led by a woman. Cyrus’ body was brought back to Babylon and then to the desert of southern Iran, where his tomb remains today. In a manner that is somewhat surprising, Cyrus had his epitaph carved above the door to the tomb.
“O Man, wherever thou comes from, and whoever thou art! Know that I was Cyrus and that I conquered the world. Grudge me not, therefore, my monument.”
What were the major city-states of sixth-century Greece?
There were about a dozen, ranging from Thebes in the north to Sparta in the south. Though they all spoke the same language, these peoples were intensely competitive with each other, seeking the glory and well-being of their individual city-states. At the same time, they were quite conscious of being different from all outsiders.
Language defined a Greek, but so did culture, and we might say “culture with an attitude.” The modern word barbarian comes to us from the Greeks, who thought that less civilized people had poor diction and that their conversation resembled the bleating of sheep. By about 500 B.C.E., the Greeks felt a conscious superiority to all their neighbors. Of course it made things easier that, being a peninsular nation with the city-states stretching from north to south, they had rather few neighbors. That was about to change with the arrival of the Persians.
How far had Persia progressed since the death of Cyrus the Great?
In only thirty years (530–500 B.C.E.) Persia had become the super state of the Middle East, the first true world superpower. The Persians knew nothing of China, and their sway ended at the Oxus River in Central Asia, but practically all the other nations and peoples had fallen under their banner. Even Egypt was conquered during the reign of Cyrus’ son, King Cambyses II.
Persians called their leader the “King of Kings” because he received tribute from the former kings of Assyria, Babylon, Israel, Egypt, and elsewhere. The Persians often left the bureaucracy of the former peoples in place, with a thin layer of Persians and Medes at the top. Given all this success, one wonders why Persia needed to conquer Greece, and the answer is simple: it did not. Greece had no precious raw materials, nothing that Persia required. Instead, the campaigns against Greece were all about mastery and dominion. The Persian leaders were bothered, sometimes incensed, that this small people, to the far west of their empire, managed to remain independent.
How did the Graeco-Persian Wars begin?
In 498 B.C.E., the Greek city-states on the west coast of modern-day Turkey rose against their Persian overlords in the so-called Ionian Revolt. The mainland Greeks naturally supported the revolt, and when it was stamped out, the Persians decided to teach them a lesson. The first Persian offensive was in 493 B.C.E., but their ships were wrecked off the northern Greek coast, and the main challenge, therefore, had to wait another few years.
In 490 B.C.E., the Greeks learned that the Persians were back, with a much larger fleet and army. The Persians were not natural sailors; they appropriated their ships and seamen from the Phoenicians, who they had conquered a generation earlier. With such a formidable combination of land and sea power, it seemed only a question of time before Greece was overwhelmed.
Which of the Greeks were first on the scene?
Athens, located on the southern side of the peninsula of Attica, was a natural target, but so was Corinth, located right at the junction between mainland and peninsular Greece. The Athenians learned, just in time, that the Persians were indeed coming to land in their area, and the runner Pheideippides was sent—with all haste—to alert the Spartans.
Examples of how Greek soldiers dressed during the time of the Graeco-Persian Wars. At left is a soldier using a sling, and at right are “hoplites,” or foot soldiers.
Arriving in Sparta after a run of 140 miles, Pheideippides was told that a religious festival was underway, and the Spartans could not depart until it was over. Declaring that Athens and Corinth might be laid waste, he ran the 140 miles back to Athens, where, presumably, he had a few days’ rest before heading out with the army.
Where does the modern Marathon—exemplified by the Boston Marathon—get its name?
Pheideippides and the Athenian army marched twenty-six miles to a set of hills overlooking the beach called Marathon. The Persians were drawn up on that beach, with archers, cavalry, and the support of their ships. The Athenian leaders conferred and decided to make a headlong attack and to come on the run. They rightly figured that the Persians were unused to this type of attack.
The Persians were strongest in their center, but the Athenians attacked on their wings, driving all before them. The Greek historian Herodotus claims that 6,000 Persians died, while only 192 Greeks perished. Even if this is an exaggeration, there is no doubt that the Persians were stunned by the attack. Those who survived got onto their ships, and it was at that moment that the Athenian leaders recognized the danger. Though they had been mauled, the Persians could surely sail around the peninsula faster than the Greeks could march; it was imperative, therefore, to warn the city of the danger. Pheideippides was asked to make one more, supreme effort.
How did Athens escape the danger?
Pheideippides ran the entire twenty-six miles back to the city. He had run 140 miles to Sparta, 140 miles back. He had marched with his comrades to the beach and fought in an intense battle. Now he was asked to run once more, and he performed admirably. Tradition has it that Pheideippides reached the northern gates and shouted that the battle had been won but that danger still remained. At that moment, he died.
Historians and athletes alike have long raised their eyebrows when first told the Pheideippides story. Could one person really do all that running, and fighting, and still have enough gas in the tank—figuratively speaking—to go the last twenty-six miles? Many of these doubts were put to rest in the first decade of the twenty-first century, when Californian Menares ran 262 miles without stopping, over a period of three days. Subsequent investigations turned up a small tribe of Mexican Apaches who routinely run over one hundred miles, and do so with the skimpiest of footwear.
Who gained the most over the next decade?
Athens, for certain. The other Greek city-states participated in the joyous celebrations, but the greatest glory, by far, went to Athens and its people. A new leader, too, emerged during that decade. His name was Themistocles, and he became the primary spokesman for Athens. When the Athenians stumbled on a silver strike in 483 B.C.E., Themistocles persuaded them to spend the treasure on building more warships rather than beautifying the city. He rightly suspected that the Persians would return.
What does Thermopylae mean?
The word has since come to stand for freedom and an inspired fight against great odds, but its original meaning was “hot gates.” There were some warm water springs close by.
Leonidas and his 300—who had been joined by roughly 7,000 Greeks from other city-states—took up a defensive position at Thermopylae, with the mountains on their left flank and the sea on their right. This was a good strategy, but when the Persians arrived, it seemed utterly hopeless. Even though he had lost men to sickness and disease, Xerxes could still throw at least ten times as many as the defenders.
Why did the Persians make such a grand appearance in 480 B.C.E.?
This time, the King of Kings, Xerxes I, led the Persian army. The historian Herodotus claims that there were three million Persians, but even a figure one-tenth that large would still be an exaggeration; there simply wasn’t enough food to supply that many.
Angered by the Persian repulse at Marathon, Xerxes planned a grand campaign, bringing almost 1,000 Phoenician ships, as well as his host. The Persians crossed the Hellespont and entered Thrace on their way to Greece. The Greeks knew they were coming, and appeals again went out from Athens to all the other city-states. This time, Sparta claimed it was not ready to field its army, but King Leonidas declared he would bring 300 of his best fighting men to northern Greece. That seemed like a mere drop in the bucket, but the Spartans were great warriors.
What was the fighting like?
We have no eyewitness accounts but can surmise that it was extremely thick and heavy. Three times, Xerxes threw Persian troops at the Greeks, and each time they were repulsed. The last attempt was made by The Immortals, Xerxes’ hand-picked bodyguards, but they, too, were turned back. Xerxes knew he could prevail over time, but he was in a hurry. His enormous army required food supplies, and the land just beyond Thermopylae was ripe for the picking. And then, just when everything was at its most difficult, the Persian monarch received a break. A traitor came forth.
Ephialtes, a goat herder, offered to lead the Persians through a mountain trail that would position them behind the Greek position. A large section of Xerxes’ army set out on that way, while the rest stood and glared at the Greeks, with neither side making any attack. Just when the trap was about to be sprung, King Leonidas learned of the Persian maneuver. He asked, and then commanded, the 7,000 Greek allies to make haste and escape, while he and his 300 Spartans remained and fought to the last man.
Where did the Persians go after their victory at Thermopylae?
It was a very expensive victory: 10,000 Persians were killed, wounded, or went missing. The slaughter of the Spartans opened the way to Attica, however, and within a month, Xerxes and his generals were in Athens. The King of Kings was astonished to find almost no Greeks in the city: they had been evacuated, by boats, to the nearby island of Salamis. Xerxes did the best he could, burning what parts of the city were flammable. He also released his army to burn and sack the countryside. The incomplete nature of his victory nagged at him, however, because he still had not faced the main body of the Spartans.
Themistocles, the primary leader of the Athenians, played a double game, sending messages to Xerxes, pretending to be a traitor. Themistocles informed Xerxes that the Greeks were divided because of the rivalries between the city-states (this was at least half-true) and that this was the opportune moment to send in Phoenician ships and sailors to crush the Greeks. Xerxes took the bait.
What was the Battle of Salamis like?
The 480 B.C.E. naval battle was a raging, swirling confrontation between about 600 Persian ships and 500 Greek ones. The Persians—actually manned by Phoenician sailors—had the numerical advantage, but the narrow waters in the Bay of Salamis prevented them from using this to its full extent. The Greeks and Persians exchanged ramming techniques, but the Greeks used something fairly new in naval combat: they stripped the oars of their opponent’s vessels. This was accomplished by coming close alongside the enemy ship, and, at a crucial moment, making a sharp right-hand turn. The Greek vessel, from prow to stern, would then pass by the Persian one, ripping or stripping all of its oars. The Greeks would then leave their opponent—who could no longer maneuver—and come back later, at an opportune time, to capture him.
The Battle of Salamis by nineteenth-century artist Wilhelm von Kaulbach. Although the Persians had more ships than the Greeks, it didn’t matter because the narrow Bay of Salamis made it impossible to maneuver around the Greeks, who would be victorious that day.
How decisive was the Battle of Salamis?
It was even more earth-shaking than Marathon. The Greeks captured or destroyed 300 Persian ships, meaning that Xerxes’ victory at Thermopylae was useless. Lacking an effective fleet to supply and transport his troops, the King of Kings feared being trapped in Greece. Soon after the Battle of Salamis, he led three-quarters of his army in a forced march to the pontoon bridge he had built across the Hellespont. One-quarter of the Persian army remained to sustain an active threat to Greece, but it was thoroughly defeated in 479 B.C.E. at the Battle of Plataea.
Put together, the Greek victories at Marathon, Salamis, and Plataea ended the Greco-Persian Wars. Any doubt as to Greece’s continued independence disappeared with remarkable, long-lasting effects. Historians often name Marathon and Salamis among the most important battles of world history because if the Persians triumphed, Greece would have become a province of the great empire, and the Greek contributions to science, literature, drama, and the visual arts might well have been lost.
Why did the Greeks win so often, even when they were heavily outnumbered?
The answer is threefold. First and foremost, the Greeks fought in defense of their homeland and were much more familiar with the terrain. Second, Greek troops had a strong spirit of individuality and fought with greater cleverness—as well as desperation—than their opponents. The third, often overlooked, aspect is the Greeks’ athleticism. Greek soldiers were—on average—faster and nimbler than the Persians, a quality derived in part from their interest in the science of the body.
Why did the Peloponnesian War begin? Was it inevitable?
According to the great historian Thucydides, it was the growing power of Athens, and the resultant envy of this power among Spartans, that brought on the Peloponnesian War in 432 B.C.E.
Whether the war was inevitable remains debatable. The Athenians demonstrated arrogance during the Greek Golden Age, and they certainly made other Greeks feel “less than.” Even so, negotiations, and a better understanding of what each city-state had to offer, might have staved off the war. Instead the war came, with a league of city-states led by Athens arrayed against a league led by Sparta.
Was the Peloponnesian War what we call the battle between the elephant and the whale?
By 432 B.C.E., Athens had definitely become whalelike, a great maritime power whose ships ranged over the eastern and central Mediterranean. By 432 B.C.E., Sparta was still the great land power, but the numbers of its fighting men had declined, thanks to a loss of population to other, more exciting Greek city-states. When the war commenced, most observers believed that Athens would prevail within a few years because of its fleet, its trade, and above all its treasury, which had grown in recent years.
Pericles, leader of the Athenians, expressed his war policy in the following way. Athens and its allies would surely win, he asserted, so long as they did not fight Sparta on land. When the Spartans came north, the Athenians—their countrymen included—huddled within the famous “Long Walls” of Athens. The Spartans could ravage the countryside all they wanted, but Athens was still supplied by sea. Using this defensive posture at home, Athens would go on the offense against Sparta’s allies, and in the end, wear them down. It was an excellent strategy, but it overlooked the law of unintended consequences.
Pericles led the Athenians with a combination of military and political skill. This is a bust of the Athenian kept at the British Museum.
What kind of plague visited Athens in the third year of the war?
Quite possibly it was the bubonic plague, which would later become a byword for horror in medieval times. One third of all the Athenians died because they were packed in the city for reasons of defense. Pericles was among those who perished.
The loss of so many people meant that Athens could not attack Sparta’s allies, and the war dragged on for a number of years, with Sparta giving better than it received. In 415 B.C.E., however, Athens found a new, charismatic leader. A kinsman of Pericles, handsome and well spoken, Alcibiades seemed like the perfect new general. Most important of all, he was vouched for by none other than Socrates, whose life he had saved in an earlier battle.
What went wrong with Alcibiades’ new plan for Athens?
Alcibiades violated a key aspect of Pericles’ former policy: to avoid unnecessary entanglements or adventures. Because the Greek city-state of Syracuse on the eastern side of the island of Sicily was a Spartan ally, Alcibiades decided to strike there. Nearly half of the Athenian fleet sailed, with 10,000 troops aboard, but Alcibiades did not go; he was deprived of his command by the city fathers almost at the last moment. Not only did the Siege of Syracuse fail, resulting in the loss of nearly all the soldiers, but Alcibiades soon turned traitor, offering his services to Sparta. In one of the most circular movements of any military leader, Alcibiades went from being an Athenian admiral to a Spartan general, but he then defected from Sparta to Persia. While considering yet another defection—this time back to Athens!—Alcibiades suffered a defeat at sea and committed suicide.
How did Sparta finally win the Peloponnesian War?
Though Alcibiades was a major disappointment to Sparta, the Spartans used his strategy, which was to seek a naval alliance with Persia. This resulted in the creation of a Persian-built fleet, manned by Spartan sailors. In 405 B.C.E., Sparta won the naval Battle of Aegospotami. As a result, Athens lost the ability to resupply its population with grain from the Black Sea, via the Sea of Marmara and the Hellespont.
Athens sued for peace, and the terms were harsh. Sparta required that the Long Walls—running from the city proper to the naval port—be pulled down. Athens had to yield practically all its war-making capacity, and at the end of the war, only one-third of the population of the city survived. Sparta’s allies wanted to go even further. They urged Sparta to kill all adult Athenian males, but that was too much, even for the elephant which had finally conquered the whale.
Given their success against the Persians, why did the Greeks need a new fighting style?
They probably didn’t. It was their own set of civil wars (Sparta versus Athens and Thebes versus Sparta) that made the rise of the phalanx necessary.
By about 350 B.C.E., the Greeks fought in this new formation, which was quite different from any which had before been seen. The phalanx was an oddly shaped, irregular rectangle, with about 300 men packed into tight ranks. Men in the outer ring carried spears, some as long as twenty-two feet. Men in the second, inner row carried shorter spears and deadly swords. The innermost part of the phalanx was composed of men who hurled rocks at the foe. All together, the phalanx formation resembled a hedgehog or a porcupine, lurching toward the foe, but in modern terms we would probably associate it with a tank.
Where was the phalanx developed?
The phalanx formation was first deployed during a set of wars between Sparta and Thebes, but it reached the peak of its development under the leadership of Philip II, king of Macedon. Philip had been a hostage at Thebes during his teenage years; there, he saw and learned the best that Thebes had to offer. Returning to Macedon, Philip developed a new phalanx, adding a new dimension, that of cavalry on both wings. As a result, the Macedonian phalanx combined speed and strength, power and flexibility.
By the time of his death in 336 B.C.E., King Philip was the master of all of Greece except Sparta. He had begun to turn his attention east, with plans to invade the Persian Empire. However, Philip was assassinated at the age of fifty-six, and his plans were carried out by his son, the remarkable person known as Alexander the Great.
Was Alexander’s childhood as tortured as we have sometimes heard?
Yes, indeed. Though he was prince and heir to the throne, Alexander lived a precarious life, alternating between the wishes and desires of his father—King Philip II—and his mother, Olympias of Epirus. These strong-willed personalities gave much to their son, particularly in terms of ambition, but his childhood was a dangerous time as he sought to adjust to their conflicting demands.
King Philip divorced his wife when Alexander was about fifteen, and there was concern that the son by his new marriage might replace Alexander as heir to the throne. Whether or not Alexander had a hand in his father’s assassination (the full truth has never come out), he doubtless suffered some guilt after his father’s death and his own elevation to the throne. Olympias was, naturally, thrilled with the developments, especially when it became clear that she would be the real power in Macedonia when her son went to invade Persia. First, however, Alexander had to deal with a rebellion in Greece.
What happened to Thebes?
At its height, Thebes was a city-state with a population of around 70,000. Today, all that remains of the city is a series of corn fields and olive groves, with almost no trace of its former glory. The culprit was the brief Theban Revolt of 335 B.C.E.
Believing that Alexander was an easier target than his deceased father, the people of Thebes rose in revolt and asked the other city-states to join them. While the issue hung in the balance, Alexander came south with his Macedonian army and utterly defeated the Thebans. He then proceeded to destroy the city, brick by brick. Tradition has it that he left exactly one house standing, which belonged to a poet whose work he admired. This display of ruthlessness was sufficient: there were no further revolts or rebellions against Macedonian rule.
How many men were in Alexander’s army?
Alexander left Macedonia in the spring of 334 B.C.E., with 35,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry. This seems like a preposterously small number with which to commence an invasion, but Alexander—whose spies kept him informed about Persian weakness—was supremely confident. Tradition has it that he slept with a copy of Homer’s Iliad under his pillow and that he regarded himself as the new Achilles.
At twenty, Alexander was a superb combination of lean, athletic grace and razorsharp intelligence. He had been tutored for a time by the philosopher Aristotle. Alexander had no doubt that Greeks and Macedonians were superior to all other peoples and that they were meant to govern the world. At the same time, he had some rather advanced ideas about ethnic and racial harmony, believing that he would one day create a blended society of Greeks and the people they conquered.
Where was Alexander’s first battle?
Alexander performed the same passage of the Hellespont as Xerxes, but in reverse (he performed sacrifices on the Asian side, vowing to avenge Greece for the Persian invasion of 480 B.C.E.). The first three months saw only skirmishes, but the Persians gathered an army of roughly equal strength and the two sides clashed at the Battle of the Granicus (River).
The battle was fought on a dry riverbed during a time of drought, with the Greeks on the west side and the Persians to the east. Both sides struggled for possession of the riverbed, and the outcome was doubtful for hours. Then Alexander took a fall from his horse—the famed Buchephalus—and lay on the ground for several minutes (very likely, his staff performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation). The Greeks and Macedonians lost heart when Alexander went down, but when the commander rose and mounted his horse, it restored their confidence. The battle was won an hour later, with the Persians in a dignified retreat.
A painting by Sebastiano Conca (1680–1764) depicts Alexander the Great visiting the Temple of Jerusalem. Alexander conquered lands from Greece to Judea to Egypt to the edge of the Indian subcontinent before dying at the young age of thirty-two.
Meanwhile, where was the King of Kings?
Darius III was not a warrior like his ancestors. He had a reputation to defend, however, and an empire to preserve. Hearing that the Greeks and Macedonians were a tough group, Darius assembled a large army, perhaps as many as 100,000. When Alexander and his men descended from the last of the Turkish mountains onto the broad plain that lies at the northeast corner of the Mediterranean, they found Darius’ Persians waiting for them.
We employ terms like “the Persians,” but Darius’ army was actually made up of Persians, Egyptians, Bactrians, Phoenicians, and others; this was almost inevitable, given the size of the Persian Empire. One reason Alexander would win so decisively is that his men nearly all spoke the same language, while Darius’ may have spoken as many as six!
Who won the Battle of Issus?
The battle is celebrated in art with a mosaic that depicts Alexander on Buchephalus, driving straight at Darius, who is ready to turn and flee. Although the mosaic clearly intends to glorify Alexander, there is truth in this depiction.
The battle was about evenly matched, with the phalanx proving unbeatable, but with the Persians doing well on the two wings. At a critical moment, Alexander and the King’s Companions—his chosen group of horsemen—drove straight into a gap in the Persian lines, coming close to Darius. The King of Kings fled, and his staff of interpreters—those who made coordination between his various ethnic groups possible—surrendered. As a result, the Persian army disintegrated, with the Macedonians and Greeks in hot pursuit. Approximately 20,000 Persians were killed, and many more were captured. That evening, Alexander also captured Darius’ tent, with two of his wives, several of his children, and an immense amount of silver and gold.
Was there any chance Alexander could be stopped?
Darius III did not think so. On hearing of the loss of part of his family, Darius sent a letter, asking Alexander to return them. Alexander could keep the treasure, Darius said, and he was welcome to the western third of the Persian Empire if only he would make peace. Holding the letter aloft, Alexander brought the matter to his top generals.
Parmenion was eldest of the group. He had served King Philip II loyally and well. Parmenion now said, “If I were Alexander, I would accept this offer.” It seemed almost too good to be true, to win all that territory after only two battles. Alexander, however, smirked, and said, “I would do so, if I were Parmenion!”
Where did Alexander go after the Battle of Issus?
He progressed down the Mediterranean coast—the part we often call “The Levant”—with all the towns and cities submitting to him. Only one chose to resist, the Phoenician city of Tyre, in modern-day Lebanon.
Located on an island half a mile from land, Tyre had resisted many would-be conquerors over the years, and to its people, Alexander seemed no different from his predecessors. They sank his quickly built fleet and defied him with flaming arrows and catapults. After some weeks of desultory, failed attacks, Alexander decided that if the city would not come to him, he must reach it. The only possible way was to build a causeway, of stone and earth, to turn part of the sea into land!
Was this the greatest of Alexander’s accomplishments?
Because it involved the change of geography, as well as sheer doggedness, his victory over the people of Tyre stands very high on the list of Alexander’s achievements. After seven months, the “mole” or artificial extension of the land was complete, and the Greeks and Macedonians stormed Tyre. All 8,000 inhabitants were either killed or sold into slavery. Today, Tyre is firmly connected to the mainland, because drifting sand, as well as wood, filled in Alexander’s mole.
When did Alexander begin to think he was semidivine?
The idea may have been there from the beginning, planted by his ambitious mother, Olympias. But the turning point was clearly when Alexander reached Egypt in 333 B.C.E. Not only did the population submit to him, but the high temple priests took him into the desert to confer all sorts of honors and blessings upon him. During these ceremonies, they told Alexander he was the son of Amun, the sun god.
Egypt had languished for centuries after being conquered first by Assyria and then Persia. Egypt was searching for a heroic leader, and had Alexander been willing to remain, he might very well have been crowned Pharaoh. Alexander was always in a hurry, however, and soon after directing that a city be built in his honor—on the western side of the Nile delta—he led his men out of Egypt and toward modern-day Iraq, where he knew Darius III was waiting.
How large a force did Darius bring to his second battle against Alexander?
The chroniclers do not tell us the exact number, but we surmise that it was at least three times as large as Alexander’s. Just as important, Darius got to pick the battle site. Arriving on the plain of Arbela weeks before Alexander, Darius had his men sweep the battlefield clean of anything that might impede the movement of his chariots. His men, too, had plenty of time to drill and prepare. Amid all the preparations, however, was a deep-seated pessimism. Many of Darius’ men simply did not believe that Alexander could be beaten.
As Alexander’s army approached, the Greeks and Macedonians were excited by a spectacular lunar eclipse. Alexander made the most of it, saying that the eclipse forecast the collapse of Persia. The Persians, by contrast, tried to ignore the eclipse. Thinking Alexander would launch a night attack, Darius kept his men at their posts all night, and they were exhausted when daylight came.
How did Alexander win the Battle of Gaugamela?
Fought on October 1, 331 B.C.E., the Battle of Gaugamela (also known as the Battle of Arbela) featured the Macedonian phalanx, especially Alexander’s use of cavalry. Two hours into the battle, the situation looked good for the Persians, who were outflanking some Greek units and overrunning others. Alexander and the King’s Companions, again, provided the decisive punch, driving straight into what looked like a solid wall of Persians and finding a weak spot.
Darius turned to run. He knew quite well that this was the end: there would be no comeback. Alexander did not pursue right away. He stayed at the battlefield, mopping up and accepting the surrender of thousands of Persians. He knew—as did everyone on the battlefield that day—that the struggle was over. He had won it all.
Why did Alexander burn the Palace of Persepolis?
Soon after winning the Battle of Gaugamela, Alexander entered Babylon in triumph. He found less silver and gold than expected, and soon he learned that the real treasure trove was at Persepolis, in southern Iran. After a few fierce fights with some last Persian holdouts, Alexander arrived at Persepolis. A few days after his arrival, he held a big celebration and then told his men to put the place to the torch in retribution for what Xerxes had done to Athens in 480 B.C.E.
An immense treasure was, indeed, discovered, and Alexander became—in one stroke—the world’s richest man. Had he paid off his veterans, each one could have gone home to Macedonia with the equivalent of a million dollars—perhaps even more—in today’s currency, but he chose not to do so. Rather than turn back, Alexander planned to go much farther. His tutor, Aristotle, had told him of a great ocean to the east, and Alexander wanted to be the first leader to see it.
Who did Alexander leave in charge while he headed east?
He already had a regent back in Macedon, and he now appointed Parmenion and other generals to command in his name in Babylon. Alexander paid little attention to those who warned him about endangering his empire due to his absence. In 329 B.C.E., he set out with about 20,000 men.
How far did Alexander travel?
Because it was not in a straight line, he and his men may well have covered 12,000 miles over the next four years. They ascended the high Pamir Mountains of Afghanistan, and may well have been the first people from any Western nation to see India. Alexander crossed the Indus in 325 B.C.E., and fought one of his last—and most desperate—battles against Porus, king of a northwestern part of India. Porus had many elephants, and they made the battle much harder, but, as usual, Alexander prevailed. Soon after this victory, Alexander prepared to move farther into India, but at this point his men rebelled. They had been on the march for over a decade, they said, and wished to get home to Macedon, if only to see their families one more time before they died.
Alexander was furious, but the “sit-down” strike of his men succeeded in stopping him where the attempts of all his opponents had failed. By 323 B.C.E., Alexander and his men were back in Babylon after a grueling cross of the Gedrosian Desert in southern Iran.
Could Alexander have gone even farther? Did anything remain for him to conquer?
Yes and no. Very likely he wished to cover more ground, but there were no foes to speak of. Alexander knew little, if anything, about the city-state of Rome, but even if he’d seen the Romans at work, he would not have feared them, and he would probably have beaten them as well. One reason for Alexander’s early death (there are, of course, several) is that he lamented the notion that he had nothing more to do.
Alexander died in Babylon, a few days after he turned thirty-two. His record of conquest has to rank at the very top of anyone’s list, especially given that it was accomplished in such a short time.
To whom did Alexander leave his vast empire?
Alexander was, at least in this regard, a realist, and when his generals raised the question of succession on his deathbed, Alexander replied, “To the strongest.” He knew there would be a struggle for the succession, and he did not make things easier by declining to name an heir.
No one—it turned out—could rule so large an empire; perhaps even Alexander would have failed had he lived longer. The empire broke into four competing sections, which often made war against each other. The most prominent of the new sections was Ptolemaic Egypt, named for General Ptolemy. Using the brand-new city of Alexandria as his base, General Ptolemy inaugurated a new chapter of Egyptian history, which by this point was nearly 3,000 years old.
After the death of Alexander the Great, the empire he built split into four pieces. Ptolemy I—a bust kept at the Louvre Museum is shown here—founded the Ptolemaic empire in Egypt.
In cultural terms, the Greeks brought their religion and philosophy to many areas. How about in military terms?
The Greeks brought the Western way of war—as described by historian Victor Davis Hanson—to the Middle East and beyond. Though the Greeks regarded all other peoples as barbarians, it is fair to say that Alexander and his successors introduced a much more barbaric method of warfare to many lands.
As Victor Davis Hanson describes it, the Western way of war involves a subtle but profound relationship between the individual and his society. A man raised in a democratic society is more likely to care about his country in a time of peril; he is also, according to Hanson, capable of far greater acts of violence against any foes. Hanson’s theory is not without critics, but may help to explain how Alexander and his Greeks and Macedonians conquered such a vast amount of territory in little more than one decade.
