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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))

03/05/2021: The ancient clubman

The ancient clubman seemed to have been a primitive kind of warrior. It was indeed less common past the bronze age, into the iron age, as most barbarian hordes were equipped with iron-tippsed weapons such as spears, javelins and axes. Clubs still survived notably among peasant levies, and ill-equipped warriors of the ancient germannic tribes. It was used as late as 9BC at the battle of Teutoburg forest, and was still used centuries later in the medieval era by commoners, and survived in the Americas as a main battle weapon up to the XIXth century. Meawnhile, the germanic "slaganz" or "slagonez" and the gallic "batoroi" by default of a better weapon and personal choice, used in in battle, but in a very specific way.

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 was a 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...
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.