Ancient Greek Warfare/Warfare In Ancient Greece

Wars were a very common part of ancient Greece. Since there were the existence of city states, which included Athens, Sparta, Thebes and Corinth, these city states would fight against each other for power. Sometimes they would become allies and fight other city states and so on. So, ancient Greek warfare was very important in those times.

Now, not only would they fight against city states, they would also fight against other countries, where they would raid those counties and take all their things. Sometimes, they even fought as mercenaries, for pay. Now, there were several wars which were fought. Historians are only aware of four of the important ones.

The first is the Trojan war which took place around 1250 BC, the Persian wars which was from 490 to 480 BC, the Peloponnesian war which was from 441 to 404 BC and the campaigns which took place of Alexander the Great from 331 to 323 BC.

In around 650 BC the Greek generals, devised a new tactic of ancient Greek warfare. Here the soldiers had to learn how to fight in lines. If this was done then all of the soldiers were protected by the shields of the neighboring soldiers. So when they were marching together, no arrow or shield could get through.

Now people had to be able to afford, armors and shields and helmets and so on. So, if one could not afford these, which were quite expensive, one could not join the army either. Now all the warfare which we talked about till now, was called the hoplite warfare.

Now the battles which were fought were fought on grounds which were completely flat as well as open. So any chance of using any sort of tactics would be cut short because of this. Also the battles which were fought were very bloody, brutal and they were quite short too. There was a degree of high discipline which was involved in these battles. The main aim of the hoplite strategy was basically shock combat, where they would ram into the enemy to break down the defense.

Information on: Ancient Greek Warfare, Warfare in Ancient Greece

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