Plataea 479 BC
Plataea 479 BC

Author: William Shepherd

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2012-01-20

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1780960301

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A highly illustrated account of the closing battle of the Greek and Persian War. Plataea was one of the biggest and most important land battles of pre-20th century history. Close to 100,000 hoplite and light-armed Greeks took on an even larger barbarian army that included elite Asian cavalry and infantry, and troops from as far away as India, with thousands of Greek hoplites and cavalry also fighting on the Persian side. At points in the several days of combat, the Persians with their greater mobility and more fluid, missile tactics came close to breaking the Greek defensive line and succeeded in cutting off their supplies. But, in a fatal gamble when he nearly had the battle won, their general Mardonius committed the cream of his infantry to close-quarters combat with the Spartans and their Peloponnesian allies. The detailed reconstruction of this complex battle draws on recent studies of early 5th-century hoplite warfare and a fresh reading of the ancient textual sources, predominantly Herodotus, and close inspection of the battlefield.

The Campaign of Plataea September, 479 B.C. (1904)
The Campaign of Plataea September, 479 B.C. (1904)

Author: Henry Burt Wright

Publisher:

Published: 2009-08

Total Pages: 154

ISBN-13: 9781104937386

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This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

After Thermopylae
After Thermopylae

Author: Paul Cartledge

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2013-05-09

Total Pages: 234

ISBN-13: 019991155X

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The Battle of Plataea in 479 BCE is one of world history's unjustly neglected events. It decisively ended the threat of a Persian conquest of Greece. It involved tens of thousands of combatants, including the largest number of Greeks ever brought together in a common cause. For the Spartans, the driving force behind the Greek victory, the battle was sweet vengeance for their defeat at Thermopylae the year before. Why has this pivotal battle been so overlooked? In After Thermopylae, Paul Cartledge masterfully reopens one of the great puzzles of ancient Greece to discover, as much as possible, what happened on the field of battle and, just as important, what happened to its memory. Part of the answer to these questions, Cartledge argues, can be found in a little-known oath reputedly sworn by the leaders of Athens, Sparta, and several other Greek city-states prior to the battle-the Oath of Plataea. Through an analysis of this oath, Cartledge provides a wealth of insight into ancient Greek culture. He shows, for example, that when the Athenians and Spartans were not fighting the Persians they were fighting themselves, including a propaganda war for control of the memory of Greece's defeat of the Persians. This helps explain why today we readily remember the Athenian-led victories at Marathon and Salamis but not Sparta's victory at Plataea. Indeed, the Oath illuminates Greek anxieties over historical memory and over the Athens-Sparta rivalry, which would erupt fifty years after Plataea in the Peloponnesian War. In addition, because the Oath was ultimately a religious document, Cartledge also uses it to highlight the profound role of religion and myth in ancient Greek life. With compelling and eye-opening detective work, After Thermopylae provides a long-overdue history of the Battle of Plataea and a rich portrait of the Greek ethos during one of the most critical periods in ancient history.

Lost Battles
Lost Battles

Author: Philip Sabin

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-02-05

Total Pages: 527

ISBN-13: 0826422004

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From the author's introduction: Ancient battles seize the modern imagination. Far from being forgotten, they have become a significant aspect of popular culture, prompting a continuing stream of books, feature films, television programs and board and computer games... there is a certain escapist satisfaction in looking back to an era when conflicts between entire states turned on clear-cut pitched battles between formed armies, lasting just a few hours and spanning just a few miles of ground. These battles were still unspeakably traumatic and grisly affairs for those involved - at Cannae, Hannibal's men butchered around two and a half times as many Romans (out of a much smaller overall population) as there were British soldiers killed on the notorious first day of the Somme. However, as with the great clashes of the Napoleonic era, time has dulled our preoccupation with such awful human consequences, and we tend to focus instead on the inspired generalship of commanders like Alexander and Caesar and on the intriguing tactical interactions of units such as massed pikemen and war elephants within the very different military context of pre-gunpowder warfare. Lost Battles takes a new and innovative approach to the battles of antiquity. Using his experience with conflict simulation, Philip Sabin draws together ancient evidence and modern scholarship to construct a generic, grand tactical model of the battles as a whole. This model unites a mathematical framework, to capture the movement and combat of the opposing armies, with human decisions to shape the tactics of the antagonists. Sabin then develops detailed scenarios for 36 individual battles such as Marathon and Cannae, and uses the comparative structure offered by the generic model to help cast light on which particular interpretations of the ancient sources on issues such as army size fit in best with the general patterns observed elsewhere. Readers can use the model to experiment for themselves by re-fighting engagements of their choice, tweaking the scenarios to accord with their own judgment of the evidence, trying out different tactics from those used historically, and seeing how the battle then plays out. Lost Battles thus offers a unique dynamic insight into ancient warfare, combining academic rigor with the interest and accessibility of simulation gaming. This book includes access to a downloadable computer simulation where the reader can view the author's simulations as well create their own.

The Campaign of Plataea
The Campaign of Plataea

Author: Henry Burt Wright

Publisher: Theclassics.Us

Published: 2013-09

Total Pages: 46

ISBN-13: 9781230299112

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II (I) The Pre-Periclean Vulgate (A) Historical Features of the Period The Campaign of Plataea took place during the archonship at Athens of Xanthippus, which began on the 19th of July, 479 B.C. The traditional date of the decisive engagement is the 19th of September of the same year; but this, though probable, is not established. No new evidence is at hand beyond that given in Busolt's elaborate chronological note (p. 725 n. 4). The thirty years which followed the expulsion of the Persians from Greece is known as the age of Cimon. Shortly before the Campaign of Plataea, Cimon, the son of Miltiades, had been sent from Athens to Sparta at the head of an embassy to effect active co-operation between the two leading states of Greece in the war against Persia. His success on this occasion seems to have influenced his future measures as a statesman, for during the years following the battle, when he was the leading spirit at Athens, the policy of the state was a definite one--alliance with Sparta and offensive warfare against Persia. The age of Cimon was one of harmony between states in Greece. It was not until nearly twenty years after Plataea that Sparta had her first open quarrel with Athens.1 The friendly relations between the two states were then ruptured for a short time, but after the battle of Tanagra, in which the Athenians were defeated by the Lacedaemonians, Cimon's policy of a united front against the common enemy of Greece again prevailed. His death in 449 B.C., however, marked the ascendency of views diametrically opposed to those which he had championed. The writers who preserved the records of Plataea during the age of Cimon were men thoroughly imbued with the 'Thuc. 1. 102. 3. broad pan-Hellenic policy. Simonides...

Battle Of Plataea, August 479 Bc
Battle Of Plataea, August 479 Bc

Author: André Geraque Kiffer

Publisher: Clube de Autores

Published: 2024-01-31

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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The Battle of Plataea was the decisive ground battle during the second Persian invasion of Greece. It took place in 479 BC near the town of Plataea in Boeotia, between an alliance of Greek city states, including Sparta, Athens, Corinth and Megarida, and the Persian Empire of Xerxes I. For lack of a clearer picture of the situation Mardonius was led to a strategic operational error, but we believe he could still have tactically won if he had better employed his main forces, that is, his cavalry (not dispersing it). and the historically cited elite infantry, which we will consider to be one of the Immortals divisions, probably ceded by their king and father-in-law for the continuation of the ground campaign. In the simulation it will be considered that the Greek device was unbalanced by the confusing nocturnal withdrawal, relying on the shocking action of the hoplite masses, particularly from the Spartan East Wing, to balance and / or reverse the situation the following day. The equilibrium of the Persian device will be based above all on the hold of the opposing wings by the infantry, allowing penetration through the center and subsequent overflowing of the flanks, by the cavalry and the heavy infantry (the “Immortals”).

Song of Wrath
Song of Wrath

Author: J. E. Lendon

Publisher: Basic Books (AZ)

Published: 2010-11-02

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 0465015069

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Offers a thrilling account of the first stage of the Peloponnesian War, also known as the Ten Years' War, between the city-states of Athens and Sparta, detailing the pitched battles by land and sea, sieges, sacks, raids and deeds of cruelty—along with courageous acts of mercy, charity and resistance.