After the Achaemenid Persian defeat under Darius at the Battle of Marathon ten years before, his son Xerxes decided, under pressure from his advisors, to invade Greece overwhelmingly by land with an accompanying supply fleet offshore. In the summer of 480 BCE, Xerxes’ Persian Army conducted the largest seaborne invasion of Europe until the Normandy landings in 1944, 2500 years later. And then in one of the engineering marvels of the ancient world, the Persians constructed two 1,300m pontoon bridges across the Hellespont (the modern Dardanelles) and marched the rest of his massive army across over a total of seven days and seven nights.

The Athenian General Themistocles suggested that the Greeks make a stand at the narrow pass at Thermopylae (or “Hot Gates”, named after a warm spring nearby) and the adjacent straits of Artemesium. The narrow confines of each would mitigate the Persians’ greater numbers. Themistocles, an Athenian, would lead the Greek navies at Artemesium, while King Leonidas of Sparta led the Greek armies. On his march to the pass, Leonidas collected various contingents from other Greek city states, but due to the Olympic Games, during which fighting is prohibited, he could only collect limited forces. Nonetheless he planned to delay the Persians long enough for the rest of the Greeks to mobilize after the games. From Sparta, he brought only his personal bodyguard of 300 hoplites, and 900 other squires and armed retainers. The remaining Spartan army would fight with the main Greek army when it formed. Along the march he collected 4000 hoplites and 3000 more armsmen from the city states of Phocia, Trachis, Arcadia, Corinthia, Tegea, Mantinea, Thebes, Thespia, Malia, and Locria.

On 19 August 480 BCE) the 400,000 strong Persian Army under Xerxes I arrived outside of the narrow pass of Thermopylae and met the 8000 Greeks under King Leonidas. A Trachian lamented that the Persians were so many that their arrows would blot out the sun. A Spartan file commander, Dienekes, responded, “Good, then we will fight in the shade.” Hoping that the show of force sufficiently cowed the Greeks, the Persian herald demanded Leonidas surrender his weapons in a show of subservience to Xerxes. Leonidas responded “Molon labe”, “Come and get them.”

It took three days for Xerxes to organize an assault and on 22 August he attacked. The Greeks were armored in their traditional heavy bronze breastplate, helmet, and greaves, and armed with a large bronze shield (hoplon), an 8 ft stabbing spear (dory) that they used overhand, and a short sword (xiphos). They fought in their traditional densely packed shoulder to shoulder formation called a “phalanx” which was amazingly effective in the narrow Thermopylae Pass. The Persians were many and varied and from different provinces of Near Eastern Asia but few were as heavily armed as the Greeks. The only equivalents in the Persian army were Thessalian hoplites from already conquered Greek city states who were forcibly conscripted during the Persian advance. Persian arms and armor were meant for speed, mobility, and ranged attacks in the deserts, steppes, and mountains of their homelands. They could not withstand the rigors of close quarters combat in the narrow valleys of Greece. Their cane arrows and javelins couldn’t pierce the bronze armor; and their cloth, wooden or leather armor, and wicker shields, provided no protection against the iron weapons. Furthermore, the Greeks were soldiers in the Western tradition and valued discipline and maintaining position where their large shields could protect the man next to him. The Persians were warriors in the Eastern tradition which valued the personal kill. The Persian warriors continually broke formation making them easier to kill by the disciplined mass of Greek spears. Even Xerxes’ own bodyguard, the elite Immortals, known so because they always maintained a number of 10,000 due to casualties immediately replaced, could not break the Greek phalanx. Leonidas and his small army held the pass against overwhelming numbers for two days under constant assault.

In the early hours of the third day, a Greek traitor named Ephaliates led the Immortals on a little known mountain track which out flanked Leonidas. The small Phocian force sent to hold it was pushed aside. That morning, the Greeks met to discuss the new situation, and only the Spartans and Thesbians volunteered to remain and fight. The Thebans also stayed, but Herodutus said it was against their will. The rest of the army fell back to join the Greeks mobilizing after the Olympic Games. That afternoon the Persians attacked from both sides of the pass and overwhelmed the remaining defenders. The Thebans, bitter rivals of both the Spartans and Athenians, surrendered to the Persians. Leonidas and the remaining Spartans and Thesbians fought to the death.

Over the next few weeks, Xerxes went on to conqueror Phocis, Boeotia, Euboea, and Attica, to include the city of Athens, which was sacked. However, the time bought with the lives of Leonidas’ Greek defenders at Thermopylae was well spent. In September, Themistocles lured Xerxes fleet into battle in the straits of Salamis, where the Persian navy was decisively defeated. With no way to supply his huge army in Greece, most of it returned to Persia, including Xerxes himself. Xerxes turned the army over to Mardonius, Xerxes most powerful advisor and the newly appointed Satrap of Greece. In 479 BCE, the combined armies of the remaining Greek city states under Leonidas’ nephew, the Spartan regent Pausanias, defeated Mardonius and the Persian army at the Battle of Plataea. The victories of Salamis and Plataea cemented Greek freedom from Persian domination to this day. The Greek experiment in democracy was not killed off in the cradle.

In 66 CE, the Jewish people revolted in the Roman province of Judea due to heavy handed Roman taxes. Until Nero’s reign, all taxes not used in the maintenance of the Roman garrison were sent to Rome which enabled local rule and provided little incentive to overtax. Nero changed the tax code to a large flat sum based on each province. But what was worse, anything collected over that could be kept by the garrison. This provided the perfect excuse for the greedy legate of Judea to create new taxes just to enrich the garrison and himself specifically. The Romans already had a dim view of Judaism because they would not accept the supposed divinity of the Caesars (Caligula specifically) and the silver in the Temple was too tempting a target. After seizing it, the Jews resisted and the legate slaughtered 6000. The Jews then slaughtered the garrison, and subsequently destroyed the Roman Syrian Army at the Battle of Beth Horon.

This shocked the Romans and in 67 they dispatched their best general, Vespasian, and his son Titus, with four legions, including the elite Tenth Legion. (The X Legion was “Julius Caesar’s Own”, and the one he decimated i.e. killed 10%, for cowardice in 60 BCE. He then renamed them the Tenth Legion to remind them of the price for cowardice. They never forgot.) For a year, Vespasian reduced the Jewish garrisons in countryside. In 69, Vespasian returned to Rome to proclaim himself Caesar and Titus began the siege of Jerusalem. Titus broke through the first two rings of walls but the Jews were firmly entrenched behind the third with years of food on hand.

Unfortunately for the Jews, there were two factions vying for power inside the city. The Sadducees and Pharisees wanted religious freedom and return to local rule within the Roman province of Judea. The other faction, the Zealots, wanted their own Jewish state outside of the Roman Empire among other demands. Open fighting between both factions occurred regularly. The Zealots thought that the others were not dedicated enough in the conflict with the Romans. So in early 70, they burned the food stores of Jerusalem to galvanize resistance, much to Titus’ satisfaction.

On 21 July 70, the Romans stormed the city and overwhelmed the starving defenders. In retribution, Titus ordered the slaughter of most of the city and destroyed the Temple. Tens of thousands of Jews fled Judea. The Great Revolt began the 1878 years of Jewish exile from Judea and is mostly responsible for the Jewish diaspora.

In 390 (or 387) BCE, Rome was just another city state vying for dominance on the Italian peninsula with the Etruscans, Samnites, Latins, Greeks, and Gauls, the Roman name for Celts. In July, a large Gallic warband rapidly descended on the near defenseless city of Rome. Previously, whenever the Gauls struck they looted on their way and this gave time to raise the legions, which at this time were only used for specific campaigns then disbanded. (Also, the Severian Wall which ringed Rome at its height wouldn’t be built for another hundred years.) However this time, the Gauls did not loot and drove straight to the city. The Romans couldn’t raise and train the legions, but every citizen was part of the militia, and expected to arm and armour themselves.

On 18 July, 390 BCE, 25,000 Roman citizens lined up against 15,000 Gauls at Allia outside of Rome. In this period of Roman history, the Romans were armed and organized in the Greek hoplite style (a phalanx of spears and shields) with the richest citizens (and thus best equipped) in the center, and the poorer and less well equipped to the flanks. Phalanxes are devastatingly powerful to the front but are not very maneuverable, and furthermore, vulnerable to the side. The Gauls ignored the center and chose to attack the less well equipped phalanxes on the flanks. The fast moving sword and shield equipped Gauls quickly defeated both sides before the center could react. This broke the Roman army. What was left of it retreated to the nearby walled town of Veii, recently captured from the Etruscans, while the Gauls sacked Rome for a week or so. A small Roman army that was on campaign against the Latins to the south eventually forced the Gauls, heavily laden with slaves and loot and unwilling to fight another battle, back north.

The Battle of Allia forced a decision upon the Romans: should they move their capital to Veii, with its walls, and adopt a generally defensive posture in central Italy? Or should they reform their army and go on the offensive to protect their city? Livy suggests that the Veii option was the favorite, and had they taken it there would have been no Roman conquests as we know them.

Instead, the Romans reformed their army, and made the first steps toward the legionary system we are familiar with today. First, they professionalized part of their army and maintained it throughout the year. Also, the remaining hoplite armed legionnaires formed the reserve, which allowed them time to maneuver into position to use their stabbing spears to great effect. These were the usually the richest and oldest citizens and eventually became the “triarii”. The rest of the army over time adopted the Gallic sword and shield to fight with, increasing their maneuverability, and eventually used their spears to throw. Inevitably, the younger and keener citizens moved to the front and the older and wiser ones to the rear, but this wasn’t formalized into the “hastatii” and “princips” until the First Samnite War thirty years later. The three lines of the hastatii, princips, and triarii formed the basis of the manipular legions with which the Roman Republic conquered most of the Mediterranean basin. The manipular legion was the standard Roman formation until the Marian Reforms 300 years later.

Rome wasn’t sacked again for another 800 years (until 410 CE by the Visigoths under Alaric).