Aelianus
(1st–2nd cent. ad),author of a Greek Tactica, on the tactics of the Hellenistic hoplite phalanx, heavily indebted to earlier military writers.TextH. Köchly and M. Rustow, Griechische ...
archers
A soldier armed with bow and arrows. Archers have practised their deadly skill since prehistory in most parts of the world, for example, the Romans employed Scythian archers on horseback. In the ...
armies, Greek and Hellenistic
Apart from what little archaeology can tell us, our earliest evidence comes from Homer, but it is uncertain how far the poems can be taken as depicting real warfare. To some extent, what happens on ...
armoured warfare
The trade-off between survivability and mobility on the battlefield has been a feature of warfare since the beginning of recorded history: indeed, one can imagine primitive man pondering the merits ...
arms and armour
Personal weapons and protective clothing used in combat or for ceremonial purposes, regarded as objects of beauty as well as of practical use. In Europe armourers have invariably been workers in ...
battle, battles
See under names of individual battles; also armies (both entries); hoplites; phalanx; war, art of (both entries).
battle of Delium
(424 bc).This was a battle of the Peloponnesian war, probably fought in November. An Athenian army of 7,000 hoplites, under Hippocrates, had crossed the border into Boeotia and fortified ...
battle of Nemea
(394 bc).Perhaps the greatest of hoplite battles, the battle was fought east of the river Nemea in the NE Peloponnese (see Nemea), between 6,000 Spartan hoplites, with perhaps 12,500 ...
battle of Plataea
A battle in 479 bc, during the Persian Wars, in which the Persian forces were defeated by the Greeks near the city of Plataea in Boeotia.
battle of Pylos
(425 bc)fought during the Peloponnesian war. Pylos was the headland at the north-west corner of Navarino Bay seized by the Athenian Demosthenes in 425. Sparta recalled its army from ...
battle of Sellasia
(222 bc).At Sellasia a Macedonian-led coalition army under Antigonus Doson defeated a Spartan army under their king, Cleomenes III. The battlefield was dominated by two hills, separated by the ...
battles of Koroneia
(447 and 394 bc).Commanding the narrow neck between the foothills of Helicon and Lake Copais, Koroneia was the scene of important battles during the Peloponnesian and Greek city-state wars. ...
battles of Mantinea
The three battles of Mantinea (in eastern Arcadia), fought in 418, 362, and 207 bc, exemplify the main stages of Greek warfare. The first, fought between the Spartans and a coalition mainly of ...
Brasidas
(d. 422 bc),Spartan commander. Following distinguished action as a trierarch at Pylos in 425, he was sent to northern Greece in 424 with a small force of helots and mercenaries. After saving Megara ...
Callias
(c.450–370bc),Athenian aristocrat, grandson of Callias (1), notorious for his wealth and extravagance. He was dadouchos of the Eleusinian mysteries (see Callias (1) ). He was ridiculed by comic ...
camp Followers.
Although this expression has been corrupted into a synonym for prostitutes who follow army camps, it historically referred to all civilians, male and female, associated with the military. Followers ...
casualty
N.any person who is lost to the organization by having been declared “dead,” “missing,” “ill,” “injured,” or “duty status-whereabouts unknown.”
Chabrias
(c. 420–357/6 bc),of Athens, a professional soldier who for over 30 years was frequently engaged in warfare for Athens (being a general at least thirteen times) and for the ...
classis
A classis (‘class’) was a group of Roman citizens who could meet a certain minimum wealth qualification. Servius Tullius (see rex) is supposed to have divided property owners into five classēs for ...
Dēlion
Precinct and temple of Apollo on the NE coast of Boeotia, where the Boeotians defeated the Athenians in 424 bc. The Athenians, with 7,000 hoplites and some cavalry, but no proper light troops, had ...
