Helmet and spear

I have told again in this volume some familiar stories, using mostly the original authorities, but availing myself, where it was possible, of the help of Plutarch, whose biograp...

The Greeks at Thermopylæ had by this time received warning of what had happened. The soothsayer attached to the force is said to have read in the victims which he examined a pro...

Of the battle we have two accounts, that of Herodotus, derived doubtless from one or more persons who had taken part in it, and that of Æschylus, who actually fought there as he...

The loss of the Persians was, of course, very great. Herodotus says that only 3,000 survived. This may be an exaggeration, but it is doubtless true that the chances of escape we...

The fact is that no one in the island was aware of the vast preparations which Hannibal was making for an expedition in the following year. We are not told how the secret was ke...

It would demand too much time, and would take me too far from my proper subject, if I were to relate in detail the history of the war. It can hardly be doubted that there had be...

Timoleon could not raise more than 12,000 men. He had 3,000 Syracusan citizens, an unknown number, possibly about 6,000, of volunteers from other Greek cities, and a force of me...

The eighteen months that followed the battle of the Granicus Alexander spent in Asia Minor. A few strong places resisted him, but on the whole he met with little opposition. On...

I have had to speak more than once of mercenary troops employed by the Greek cities in Sicily to help them in their long struggle with Carthage. The use of such troops was a reg...

The later years of the First Punic War had brought to the front a man of extraordinary genius, Hamilcar, surnamed Barca.[18] As his son, Hannibal, was born in this very same yea...

Of the two Consular armies one was at Ariminum (Rimini), nominally watching an enemy who was now busy elsewhere, the other was at Arretium (Arezzo). It was the latter that Hanni...

The next two years (215-214) passed without any event of great importance. One serious danger, indeed, threatened Rome, but it passed away. At Syracuse, Hiero, who had been a st...

It was in this year that the Third Punic War commenced. Cato had succeeded, it would seem, in the great object of his life. Rome was determined that Carthage should be blotted o...

The incidents that followed bear a curious resemblance to the history of the first defence of Thermopylæ. The path by which the Persians, through the treachery of Ephialtes, wer...

The Carthaginians were finally driven from Spain in 206. We may pass quickly over the next fifty years. By degrees the Roman power advanced till the whole peninsula, some mounta...

Of the three men who composed it Pompey had gained a great reputation as a soldier, Cæsar had acquired almost equal distinction by his victory in Gaul, while Crassus, though he...

The harvest in Gaul that year (B.C. 54) had been short. Hence it became necessary to scatter the legions in arranging for their winter quarters. There were eight legions, and th...

In the German tribes Rome found at last the antagonist who was to vanquish her. The victories of Marius and of Cæsar had been complete, but they did not crush the race. Their nu...

Decius, though he had made a disastrous mistake, was a brave and capable soldier. He took prompt measures to retrieve his defeat, guarding the places where the Danube could be c...

A few years after his establishment in Illyricum, Alaric, who had been in the meantime saluted king by his countrymen, felt himself equal to the task of invading Italy. Stilicho...