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This portal is dedicated to the knowledge of ancient warfare in ancient times, focusing on the early antiquity up to the fall of the Western Roman Empire, roughly 3500 years of warfare. With the help of the best web sources, ancient authors, archaeological evidences, recreations, illustrations, maps, animations, and screenshots from the highly praized Total War video game serie, choosed by history channel (Sega(r) - Creative assembly(r))

Ancient-battles peeks into the ancient "sea peoples" or the achaeans and minoans from the bronze age and homeric times, but also the Mauryan empire and T'sin armies, the steppe peoples, the Celts, as the early, or at the opposite, very late romans, like the western "barbarized" ones, or the Byzantine, "Hellenized" romans. What we know apart the famous "triplex acies" of pre-marian times, triarii, principes, hastati, equites, and velites? Before this was the very early roman army composed of aristocratic cavalry or Celeres, derived from the Etruscan nobility, and a heavy phalanx composed mainly on spearmen by classes, and a reformed army by Dictator and general Marcus Furius Camilius, with six Censes classes, with rorarii, leves and accensii...

casque d'Agris

Two splendid examples of cross-culture in the IVth Century BC, two ceremonial Gallic helmets of the era, widely decorated in Greek and Celtic patterns.

And what we know about the greek classic armies at this time, with hoplites and meprised psiloi and hippiko, and their opponents, the persians, and beyond the sparabara, takabara, kardaka and other troops ? -The greek-city states age became, with the Macedonian rise, the Hellenistic era, which created terms like "phalangitai, hypaspistai, chalkaspidai, argyraspidai, Leucaspidai, akontistai, peltastai, thureophoroi, toxotai, sphendonetai, thorakitai, hetairoi, prodromoi" were known and became a model for all combined army from the Herakles columns to the Indus river... A true encyclopedia of ancient warfare.

The Thracian Peltast

July 2018: What defined the Mercenary Peltast

Thracian peltast

This month we see the archetypal Thracian warrior. It all happened in the Peloponnesian war, the classical greece "world war" in which mercenay warfare developed to this level. Beyond this, there were the Thracians, an ancient people that dwelled in the eastern Balkans, in contact with the Greek, Scythian and later Celtic cultures; According to Herodotus, if united these tribes could have been conquered the world. Assimilated by the Greeks to the other neraby "Barbaroi", the Thracians acquired a fearsom reputation to the point of being used for dissuasion. But in the end, they influenced Greek warfare a considerable way... Thick woolen zeira, foxskin boots, cowhide caps, javelins, pelta, sica... The thracian mercenary was lightly equipped, undisciplined, coming from fierce, warlike tribes, with little loyalty and prone to banditry. How was it possible to Greek generals to hire them and used them, in some case decisively ? How they went to fill a vital link between units in newly-created wartime field armies ? Here were go - More on the Thracian peltasts